1920-03-16

' REPORTS AND PAPERS.

[Stage Direction]
Evidence and Exhibits in the Race Track Inquiry.-Sir George Foster.
Volume 3, Auditor General's Report for the year ended March 31, 1919.-Sir Henry Drayton.
Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the year ended March 31, 1919.-Hon. Mr. Meighen.
Copies of Orders in Council passed from August 1, 1919, to February 5, 1920, in accordance with the provisions of the Forest Reserves and Parks Act, Railway Belt Act, Dominion Lands Survey Act, and the Dominion Lands Act-Hon. Mr. Meighen.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Leader of the Opposition):: The Minister of Finance has laid on the Table to-day the third volume of the Auditor General's Report. May I ask when we may expect the full report, particularly that part which has to do with the war expenditure?
- Sir HENRY DRAYTON (Minister of Finance) :	I understand from the Printing
Bureau that Volumes 1, 2 and 4 will be finished about the end of this week. -Volume 4 contains full particulars of the war expenditure.



KINGSTON HARBOUR IMPROVEMENTS.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. JOSEPH ARCHAMBAULT (Chambly and Vercheres):: I would draw the attention of the Government to a despatch from Kingston appearing in the Montreal Stand-

ard of March 13, which states that the Canadian Government has given the city of Kingston the assurance that the sum of $2,500,000 will be spent on harbour improvements there. I would ask my hon. friend the Minister of Finance, who is also the distinguished representative of Kingston in this House, if the report is true, and if so, whether these improvements are to be made in fulfilment of an election promise.


Sir HENRY DRAYTON (Minister of Finance):: The report is absolutely incorrect. That also answers my hon. friend's second question, but in order to make it a little more emphatic, I might say that there was no election promise.



INQUIRY FOR RETURNS.

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. JOHN H. SINCLAIR (Antigonish and Guysborough): May I be permitted to remind the leader of the Government of the well-known Parliamentary doctrine that the Government is required to obey the orders of the House of Commons. At the last session, and the last but one, a large number of orders were passed for the production of papers, which have not yet been complied with. I am drawing this to the attention of my right hon. friend in order that he may have the proper officers notified and have the papers brought down.
Right Hon.   S@: Ii
my hon. friend will give me a list of the orders passed which have not yet been complied with, I will take the matter up personally.


Mr. J. H. SINCLAIR:: I will do that.



ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE AMENDMENT ACT.


[Stage Direction]
On motion of Hon. N. W. Rowell (President of the Privy Council) Bill No. 2, to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act and to transfer to the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police the powers heretofore vested in the Commissioner of Dominion Police was read the third time and passed.

[Stage Direction]
On the motion of Sir Henry Drayton (Minister of Finance) the House went into Committee to consider the following proposed resolution, Mr. Boivin in the Chair:
Resolved, That section twenty-seven of the Civil Service Superannuation and Retirement
Act, Chapter seventeen of the Revised Statutes of 1906, be amended to provide that the rate of interest computed on all sums to the credit of the Retirement Fund, whether principal or interest, be increased from four to five per centum per annum, that the Governor in Council shall have power to reduce the said rate of interest, but not below four per cent per annum, and that the proposed amendments shall be deemed to have come into force and effect on and from the first day of January, 1920.
Henry Lumley Drayton: This resolution speaks pretty well for itself. I would point out that I am withdrawing resolution No. 5 on the Order Paper dealing with the same subject matter as this resolution. The object of the resolution before the Committee is to increase from four to five per cent the rate of interest on the percentage that is taken compulsorily from the salaries of civil servants, and the aggregate of which is paid over to them on their retirement. In view of the higher rate of interest now prevailing it has been thought but just to grant this increased rate.


Hon. W. S. FIELDING (Shelburne and Queen's):: When this Act was passed, the rate of 4 per cent allowed on these savings was considered to be rather a generous one, because the Government were then borrowing at 3 per cent or less. I quite agree that in view of the changed conditions of the money market, 5 per cent is not too high to-day, and I quite approve the action of the minister. It suggests,,however, the point to which I drew attention the other day, that we are increasing the rate of interest on nearly everything except savings bank deposits. I mention the matter merely for the reflection of my hon. friend Sir Henry Drayton.


Mr. DUFF:: I see that provision is made to raise the rate of interest from four to five per cent, but the Governor General in Council is given power to reduce it, not below four per cent. It seems to me that some explanation is needed in regard to this provision. Why should thait power rest in the Governor in Council? I think that if a year hence, or at any other time in the future, circumstances were found to justify the reduction of ithe rate the minister might come to Parliament and obtain its sanction for that reduction.


William Stevens Fielding: I think it is well, in
increasing the rate of interest, to give notice that this is due to the general higher value of money, and that if a change takes place the rate may have to be reduced. But even if the 5 per cent rate were continued it would not be too generous.


Mr. D. D. McKENZIE:: I am quite aware that in 1898 a change was made in the superannuation law giving an option to a great many civil servants to retain their status under the old Act or to come under the new Act. I should like to know from the minister how many civil servants are now entitled to the benefit of superannuation, and how many are entitled to that under the fund with which we are now dealing. Does it apply to the Civil Service generally? An explanation from the minister would be greatly appreciated by the country, as there is at present some confusion in the matter.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I regret that 1 have not the definite statistics here, but, as I understand the matter, with the legislation of 1898 the former superannuation system ended. The result is that only those who were employed in the service prior to 1898 are still entitled to the old superannuation fund, which was not and is not a selfsupporting fund, and towards which, I think, the country has contributed something like $11,000,000. That is altogether stopped now, except as regards those who had an interest in it at the time that legislation was passed. The present arrangement applies, I understand, to all civil servants who, apart from the change in the law stopping the superannuation, would have been entitled to that superannuation. The great difference between the two funds is that the present retiring allowance is supplied entirely by the employee himself, his salary being arbitrarily reduced by five per cent.


William Stevens Fielding: An option was given to the civil servants to determine whether they would remain under the old Act or take advantage of the benefit-if it was a benefit- of the new Act. I think a few old officials came to the conclusion that they would avail themselves of the option, and I know of one notable instance in which an old public official who had contributed a great deal of money, and to whom in the natural order of things nothing would be due at the time of death, took the option and agreed to come under the retirement fund. He died a few weeks afterwards and his heirs got many thousands from the public treasury.
Resolution reported, read the first and second time, and concurred in.
Sir HENRY DRAYTON thereupon moved for leave, to introduce Bill No. 17, founded on the resolution.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and Bill read the first time.
]Mr. Fielding. [

[Stage Direction]
(6ODD AND SILVER COINAGE).
On the motion of Sir Henry Drayton (Minister of Finance), Bill No. 15, to amend the Currency Act, 1910, was read the second time and the House went into Committee thereon, Mr. Boivin in the Chair.
On Section 1-Standard for gold and silver coins-
Mr. BUREAU:: Will the minister please inform the House what the . old standard-was?


Henry Lumley Drayton: The change made here is in connection with silver coinage. The old standard was 925 parts fine, and the reduction is to 800 parts.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I take this opportunity of calling the attention of the minister to an article that appeared in the Boston Post a few days ago, regarding our exchange. In the debate on the Address I made some remarks that seem to have been regarded as being inconsistent with the general ideas concerning exchange, and I received a great deal of cheap advertisement throughout the country. The Boston Post published an editorial on my observations in which it said that Canadians could not expect anything else in regard to their money if they continued to grind it out simply in the press instead of digging it out of the ground in the form of gold. If it be the case that our exchange is what it is by reason of the fact that we have too much paper and not enough gold, when are we going to make an honest effort to get back to gold conditions and to a proper ratio between our paper money and our gold reserves so that our dollar will be worth one hundred cents as it was not so many years ago?


Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: And get the good opinion of the Boston paper.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Get the good opinion of those who are selling goods and get a good opinion of our dollar. We know that our dollar is perfectly good and legal tender everywhere. I never heard of a paper dollar issued in Canada for which payment was refused in- gold when it came back to the proper quarters. There is some prejudice against our money in the United States which is not justified. If it be true, as this paper says, that we have too much paper and not enough gold, whenever an opportunity presents itself to bring this matter to the notice of the Minister of Finance, I think we should do so. I do not profess to be an authority on these things but it

does not require very much sense to know that when you present your dollar in any of the hotels in Boston it is only worth eighty-five cents. I want to bring back the old conditions when it was worth one hundred cents on the dollar. It is all very well to say that we do not scientifically understand these things. I think I am justified in bringing it to the notice of the Government and to those who are supposed to have scientific knowledge. I want to know whether there is anything in the argument of the Boston Post or not.


Mr. RED LOW:: Mr. Chairman, what is the business before the House? We have absolutely no knowledge of what is going on. We might as well be sitting looking at a moving picture show. I would like the members, when they are addressing the House, to turn in this direction so that we will have some slight knowledge of what is going on.


The CHAIRMAN:: We are considering clause 1 of Bill No. 15.


Mr. PEDLOW:: Thank you very much. I would like to have a copy of the Bill. We do not know what the Bill refers to.


Georges Henri Boivin: The Bill has been distributed and ought to be on the hon. member's file.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I am afraid it would take some time to properly answer the question of the hon. member for North Cape Breton (Mr. McKenzie). Perhaps it will be enough to say that Canada's currency stands well and compares favourably, taking any standard of comparison, with any other currency in the world. It is absolutely an ill-founded statement to say that the declension in one particular matter, brought about by the exigencies of trade and the movements of money both as shown in trade balances which are apparent and those which are not so apparent is owing to the fact that the Canadian dollar is not sound. It is sound and not only compares well, hut, compares very favourable with any other currency.
On Section 2 : Silver coins ; schedule amended.
Mr. MeMASTER: May I ask the minister to explain what "remedy allowance" and "millesimal fineness" mean?


Henry Lumley Drayton: They mean that you are getting the fineness down to a very small point. This "remedy" which is spoken of refers to the standard of fineness that every coin ought to have. For example, it is impossible to get every single
coin absolutely perfect to the fraction of a grain and this is the standard of remedy which is fixed. The standard may be within that very small margin which is allowed. Our standard of remedy is exceedingly severe and more severe than the standard of remedy which is applied in the United States.


Mr. McMASTER:: How is that remedy applied? Are deficient coins called in?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Deficient coinage is rejected. There is a machine which tests each accurately and any coin not coming up to the standard is at once rejected.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I do not think the minister understood my qusetion. When coins in circulation get below this standard, is there any machinery for calling them in?


Henry Lumley Drayton: This particular clause of the Bill does not refer to that; it refers to minting. Of course, coins which are below standard are called in.
On -Section 3: Silver coins heretofore struck to continue current.


Mr. DAVIS:: I would like to ask the minister how this will compare with American coin and whether the change will not"make our coins pass for less than they do at the present day.


Henry Lumley Drayton: In answer to the hon. member's question I would say that a silver coin, ordinarily and properly, is a token coin. iSo long as the country stands behind the silver token, and stands for the obligation, it does not make any difference whatever as to what the contents of the token are. We have been getting into an abnormal condition, in so far as silver is concerned, owing to the unprecedented rise in the price of silver, a matter that was discussed when the motion was introduced. The price has risen, during the last year, from 80 cents to $1.41 an ounce, so that at one time we were coining silver at a loss. Of course, just as soon as you have your token coin containing enough currency to be worth the increased amount-that is the amount a coin as a token coin is worth -then the coin is more than a token and there is actual value in it apart from the token. But the function of silver coinage is token coinage, and it could have no effect upon the value of our silver currency as a token.


Fred Langdon Davis: At the present time I understand our coins are worth about one-twelfth less in actual value of silver than American coins. What I want to get at now is,

what will be their relationship with this change?


Henry Lumley Drayton: The fineness oi the American token is 900. Our old token was 25 points above the American token, but although it was 25 points better that did not help it in the American market. I might say, for the information of the hon. member, that the British Parliament, at the present time, is considering reducing the fineness of silver coinage to 500, and that the American authorities are now considering reducing the fineness of their coinage to 800.


Fred Langdon Davis: The minister has not
answered my question: What would be the proportion now between the actual value of the American silver and ours?
(Sir HENRY DRAYTON: As eight to nine.
Bill reported, read the third time, and passed.



GOVERNMENT ANNUITIES ACT (1908) AMENDMENT.

[Stage Direction]
On the motion of Sir Henry Drayton, Bill No. 16, to amend the Government Annuities Act, 1908, was read a second time and the House went into committee thereon -(Mr. Boivin in the Chair.
On section 1-sale of annuities to persons resident in Canada:
Mr. CAHILL:: Will the minister explain the meaning of the change proposed here?


Henry Lumley Drayton: The purpose of the change is to remove from the officers looking after the sale of Government annuities the obligation of seeing that a man is domiciled in Canada. It renders it more easy for them to do business, more easy for Government annuities to be placed readily at the disposal of people living in Canada. No one entertains any idea looking towards leaving Canada for the purpose of pressing the sale of annuities; this provision simply enables the officials to deal with those Canadian residents who come to do business with the department without first finding out whether they are legally domiciled here.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 2-limit of amount increased from $1,000 to $5,000:
Mr. CAHILlL: Will the minister kindly explain the purpose of this clause?
Henry Lumley Drayton: Under the old clause no annuity could he sold for a greater amount than $1,000. This provision allows annuities to be purchased from the

Government for as large an amount as $5,000.
Mr. CAlHILL: What was the reason for the Government's desire to increase the amount from $1,000 to $5,000?


Henry Lumley Drayton: Requests have been made from time to time, from residents of Canada, who were anxious to make provision either for themselves or for their children and who found an annuity of $1,000 was not sufficient for that purpose.


William Stevens Fielding: The reason is that he wants the money?
Sir HEN-RY DRAYTON: I think that is quite right; that is an additional reason.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: The House would like to know whether the Government sale of annuities has been a good paying business -what the record of the Annuities Branch has been since its inception, up to the present time. The Annuities Branch is not a very old institution in Canada. It commenced its operations, I think, in 1910, and some changes were brought about with respect to it in either 1912 or 1913. I can recall that when the former Postmaster-General, now Judge Pelletier, was in the House, we had lengthy explanations from him with respect to the annuities, and I think it is only fair to ask now if the business has been a paying one. We are paying out annuities from time to time and receiving certain contributions from the people, who are preparing themselves for the receipt of those annuities. Has the business been a paying one?
iSir HENRY DRAYTON: I have not the exact figures showing how the operations of the department have worked out, but if the hon. gentleman desires I will be very pleased to obtain them for him. The real trouble in the past has been that we have not done very much business. Now, in so far as to whether the sale of annuities has been a paying business or not, the complaint has been made that in the past the Government has been making too much money out of them. A general complaint has been made that we have not been generous enough to the public, having regard to the table on which the annuities were based, rather than that the Government was losing money on them. The real trouble with the situation, I think, is that owing to the limitations that we are now trying to get rid of, there has not been as satisfactory a volume of business in the department as could have been desired. It is hoped that with the removal of these

restrictions a far better volume of business will be transacted, and satisfactory profits made.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Would the minister instruct his officials to give us a fair idea of-how the business stands as to outgoings and incomings from its inception up to the present time?


George Green Foster: A report is laid on the table each year.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.	.
On section 3-Age when annuity payable:
Mr. H. B. MORPHY:: Mr. Chairman,
there is very great difficulty in following the discussion from this end of the Chamber. I have only just learned that clause 3 relates to Bill No. 16 to amend the Government Annuities Act of 1908. I did not hear the reason given by the Finance Minister for the amendment; consequently I am not able to properly answer something that I could not possibly understand. Speaking in this direction (towards hon. members opposite) section 3 appears to be all right, but I have a great deal of objection to it for the reason that I do not know the number of the section to be repealed. It has not been produced before the House, that I am aware,, and-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Louder.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: What I am saying, Mr. Chairman, is that section 3, repealing subsection 3 of section 8 is rather difficult to understand when the Act to be repealed is not before the House. I would like to have a full explanation of just what that section means by the Finance Minister addressing the Chairman first in this direction, so that hon. members at this end of the House may hear him, and then in the opposite direction so that other hon. members may hear as well.
It becomes a perfect absurdity and brings the House into disrepute when the public business is proceeding with only one half of the members able to hear what is being discussed. A conversational tone is,accepted I believe, in some deliberative assemblies as being a highly ornamental method to disseminate knowledge, but it is not to be recommended for adoption in this Chamber. 1 notice the pressmen with their hands to their ears in an attempt to understand what is being said-and they are quite close to the ministers. Every member is entitled to the courtesy of those gentlemen who are a little further away using their best efforts to state plainly the matter that is before the
House so that public business will be intelligible to every one; but we cannot hope for any improvement while the present conversational tone is maintained.


Henry Lumley Drayton: I have much pleasure in answering the question of the hon. gentleman, and I hope he can hear me now. We are striking out, as the hon. gentleman observes, sub-section 3 of section 8 of the old Act, which reads as follows:
Except upon the occurrence of invalidity oi disablement of an annuitant, no annuity shall be payable or paid to any annuitant, unless he has reached the age of fifty-five years.
The amendment will enable annuities to be sold so that they become effective before the age of fifty-five years is reached.


Frank S. Cahill: Does any age limit apply now?


Henry Lumley Drayton: There will be no age limit at all. The rates of pay, however, provide a very effective age limit, because if a man wants to get an annuity at an unusually early age the charge becomes prohibitive.
Section 3 agreed to.
On section 4-rate of interest increased:


Mr. COPP:: What does that mean?


Henry Lumley Drayton: The change here is merely to provide that the rate of interest which is payable to the estate of a man who would have become an annuitant if he had lived long enough shall be at four per cent instead of three. There are really three classes of annuities: (1) Where a guaranteed number of payments is made either to the man if he lives long enough or to his estate if he dies; (2) where all premiums paid on account of the annuity shall fail unless the annuitant lives for the specified period; and (3) the intermediate class where if the annuitant dies his estate does not lose the benefit of the payments which he has made, but is entitled to a return of those payments plus interest, which used to be at three percent but we now make it four percent .
Section 4 agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.


[Stage Direction]
Resuming the adjourned debate on the proposed resolution of the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Hon. Mr. Rowell) respecting the Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Bulgaria:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, before speaking to the resolution I should like to ask my hon. friend the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Rowell) whether in the resolution itself the word " plenipotentiaries" is correct, or whether the word "plenipotentiary" should be used. I notice the resolution states that the Treaty has been signed "on behalf of His Majesty, acting for Canada, by the plenipotentiaries therein named." But on referring to the Treaty itself I find there is only one plenipotentiary mentioned for the Dominion of Canada, the Hon. Sir George Perley-unless it is to be understood that the other British representatives named are also signing on behalf of the Dominion.


Hon. N. W. ROWELL:: It should be
" plenipotentiary." In this case only one representative signed on behalf of Canada; in the other case there were two Canadian ministers.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, while listening to my hon. friend, the Secretary of State for External Affairs, in introducing this resolution I could not help feeling that he himself in asking Parliament for the approval of this Treaty was doing so simply as a matter of form. There was really nothing in his argument in the way of a substantial reason why this Parliament should approve of the Treaty so far as the relations between Canada and Bulgaria are concerned. This is a Treaty between the Allied and Associated Powers and Bulgaria, and we as a Canadian Parliament are being asked to give our approval to it. One would assume that, the Canadian Parliament being asked to approve the Treaty, we would find in it somewhere something relating to the Dominion of Canada. One would also have expected that there would be a possibility of an opinion of this Parliament influencing the judgment of those who have to do with the final ratification of the Treaty. But looking at the Treaty, one sees that it was signed by the different powers at Neuilly-sur-Seine on November 27, 1919, and I am very sure my hon. friend will agree that anything that this Parliament may do in the nature of approving or disapproving the Treaty will not affect the dotting of a single "i" or the crossing of a single "t" in a single clause of the Treaty from beginning to end. It is for that reason I say, it seems to me, that the approval of this Parliament is being asked for simply as a matter of form.
LSir Henry Drayton.]
But while the hon. member has given us no substantial reasons why this Parliament should approve the Treaty, he has given reasons why it would be unwise for us not to approve the Treaty. In drawing attention to its different clauses, he pointed out that practically everything that we are asked to approve here was approved last year when we had before us the Treaty between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany. Therefore, not to approve this Treaty at this time would be to have it appear that in the interval something had arisen which had caused this Parliament to take a different attitude towards the Treaties of Peace which are being signed in Europe from that which was taken at the last session. I am not aware that anything of the kind has arisen, and for that reason, I think it would be unwise for Parliament not to take, in the matter of approving the Treaty, the same action as it took in the matter of approving the Treaty between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany.
But I want to point out just what are the grounds upon which my hon. friend has asked this Parliament to approve the Treaty. The grounds are broadly comprised under two headings. My hon. friend has mentioned one particular in which the Treaty has "special inteiest" to Canada, and it is the only particular in which he has specified any special interest to Canada as regards this Treaty. My hon. friend says that the provisions relating to debts and financial matters are of special interest to Canada in view of the fact that there are a number of Bulgarian Nationals living in Canada, and that there is a certain amount of enemy property in this country. It sounds very serious that there should be Bulgarian Nationals living in Canada, and that there should be a certain amount of enemy property in this country; but would any one consider for a moment that that was a reason serious enough to present to this Parliament for approving a particular Treaty? Yet, as I said, that was the only mention my hon. friend made in his speech of the particular interest this Treaty has with respect to Canadian affairs. In the same connection he pointed out that the provisions the Treaty contains respecting debts and financial matters are on all fours with similar provisions in the German Treaty which was approved last session.
My hon. friend went on to give another ground which he said made the matter of "most immediate concern" to Canada. It may be summed up in his own words as follows:

To go back to the two groups of clauses in the Treaty which are of most immediate oon-cern to Canada, should like for a few minutes to speak in reference to the' League of Nations and to the labour clauses of the Treaty.
In other words, we are being asked to approve this Treaty at the present time because of what it contains in reference to the League of Nations and the labour clauses of the Treaty. This Parliament has already approved the League of Nations' Covenant; it has already approved the labour clauses of the Treaty. Why should the time of Parliament be taken up in approving a second or a third time these particular matters? There has been no difference of view between us as to these clauses. I am not aware, when they were being debated in connection with the German Treaty, that a single exception was taken by any member of the House to the clauses relating to the League of Nations, and, in particular, to the labour clauses. Therefore, the reasons which my hon. friend has urged, are more in the nature of excuses for bringing this particular Treaty before the House, than they are good and substantial reasons for asking the approval of Parliament of this Treaty. I have said that they are excuses. I think, if my hon. friend would tell the House exactly what was in his thoughts, he would admit that his reason foT asking the House to approve the Treaty was 4 p.m. largely that he might repeat at this session what he said in Parliament at the last session and what he has since been saying on a good many platforms in regard to the League of Nations' Covenant and the labour clauses of the Treaty. I think that is the main reason for the introduction of this measure at this time.
My hon. friend, however, in addition to the two statements which I have quoted, has said that the adoption of the resolution involves the acceptance of certain principles which he has set forth. It is important that we should consider what my hon. friend has said in that connection. It affords the reason why, it seems to me, it would.be inadvisable for this House not to approve the Treaty. These statements of principle might be made as separate substantial motions in this House; they might be made in reference to almost any other Treaty as well as this particular one. But should this House, in view of the statement which my hon. friend has made, refuse to approve the Treaty, then it would be immediately said, or the impression would be conveyed, that in some way or another 30
this House was unwilling to accept the statements of principle which my hon. friend set forth.
Let me take up these statements of principle, one by one, and see whether there is any difference of opinion between members on both sides of the House in reference to them. They are all in the nature either of recognitions of something which is already conceded, or of reaffirmations of something which has already been affirmed. The first is the recognition of democratic control of foreign policy, and that Canada should not, without the consent of its Parliament, be finally committed to important international engagements such as are embodied in this Treaty. I venture .tp say there is not an hon. member who for one moment will take exception to the desirability of democratic control of foreign affairs. If we are to have an increased measure of foreign policy as a part of the business of this Parliament, it becomes increasingly important that we should have some effective democratic control of it; but the first example my hon. friend has given of democratic control by Parliament of foreign affairs is a somewhat unfortunate one inasmuch as he brings here for our approval a Treaty that was signed several months ago, the contents of which were not made known to a single member of this House until within the last two or three days, and a document which, I am sure my hon. friend himself will say, cannot be altered one way or another by anything which this House may do at the present time. But that is not the only example which my hon. friend has given to the House of his view of democratic control in regard to these matters	of foreign policy.
On the first of March my hon. friend the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Rowell) laid upon the Table of the House copies of other treaties:
The Czecho-Slovak Minorities Treaty, a treaty between the Principal Allied and Associated Powers and Czecho-Slavia, signed at Saint Ger-main-en-Laye, September 10, 1919. Ratification on behalf of Canada authorized by Order in Council of December 1, 1919.
Note those words " ratification on behalf of Canada authorized by Order in Council of December 1, 1919." Mr. Chairman, is ratification of a treaty by Order in Council an evidence of democratic control on the part of the Parliament of Canada? That is exactly the line of action which hon. gentlemen opposite have been taking in so many matters of all-important concern during recent years-and that we have been pro-



testing against. Instead of submitting these matters to Parliament for consideration, they have taken action upon them by Order in Council.
Copy of another treaty was also laid on the Table by my hon. friend on March 1:
The Serb-Croat-Slovent Minorities Treaty, a Treaty between the Principal Allied and Associated Powers and the Serb-Croat-Slovene State, signed at Saint Germain-en-Laye, September 10, 1919. Ratification on behalf of Canada authorized by Order in Council of December 1, 1919.
Here again is more ratification by Order in Council instead of by Parliament.
Mr. Speaker, let me repeat, we on this side of the House are strongly in favour of democratic control of all these matters of foreign policy. I think we would be willing to go so far as to say that we would like to have an expression of opinion of this House to the effect that Canada should not be bound by any treaty or agreement in matters of external relations, of which Parliament has not been fully informed in a way of which all of us could take cognizance. That would be helping along the democratic control of foreign relations, and when we have that principle carried out we shall have a sense of security which at present we do not feel in the matter of our external and inter-imperial relations.
The next reason that my hon. friend has given is that the adoption of the resolution will involve:
A recognition that in any war in which the British Empire is engaged and in which Canada has taken part is a matter ot concern to the people of Canada; that the terms of the Treaty of Peace bringing such a war to an end are also a matter of concern to the people of Canada, and that such a Treaty should not be ratified by His Majesty until it has been approved by Canada as of the five nations of the British Commonwealth.
There can be no difference of opinion on that matter. Every one in this country will admit that any war in which the British Empire is engaged and in which Canada has taken part is a matter of the greatest possible concern to Canada. Every one will be fully prepared to admit also that the terms of the treaty of peace bringing such a war to an end are also a matter of concern to the people of Canada, and that such a treaty snould not be ratified-I think the word " not " has been left out of Hansard by mistake-until it has been approved by Canada as one of the five nations of the British Commonwealth. I am not sure that my hon. friend would not have been more consistent if he had inserted after the word "treaty" in the phrase "such a treaty" the words "in so far as Canada is concerned." 
I just interject that point for his consideration.
Those are two recognitions or declarations of policy, or whatever one may choose to call them, upon which I think all hon. members of this House are thoroughly agreed. The remaining three are not recognitions of accepted policy, but are reaffirmations of positions this House has already accepted. First there is
A reaffirmation by Parliament of its approval of the creation and maintenance of a League of Nations for the promotion of international co-operation and the achievements of international peace and security by the methods set forth in the Covenant of the League.
As I mentioned a moment ago, this Parliament has approved of the creation and maintenance of a League of Nations for the promotion of international co-operation and the achievement of international peace and security by the methods set forth in the Covenant of the League. We have approved that over and over again, and why should our approval of it be asked for again in this connection? Is that a reason why this particular treaty with Bulgaria should be brought before the House for its approval at this time?
The fourth reason given toy my hon. friend is that the approval of the treaty will mean:
A reaffirmation by Parliament of its approval of the Labour Clauses; and of the creation and maintenance of the International Labour Organization under Its provisions.
How often have we to be asked, Mr. Speaker, to state what we have already stated time and time again in this House as to our views upon the Labour Clauses of the Covenant of the League of Nations? it may be that my hon. friend has some doubt as to the position some of his supporters may take towards those Labour Clauses, but let me tell him, speaking for those of us who are members of the Liberal party on this side of the House, that before the House took action one way or the other in regard to the Labour Clauses of the Covenant of the League of Nation^, the National Liberal Convention, composed of lepresentatives of the Liberal party from the Atlantic to the Pacific, made as one of the planks of its platform a full acceptance of the Labour Clauses in the spirit in which they were framed as part of the Covenant of the League of Nations. So that there may be no doubt as to the position which we pn this side of the House have taken as to the Labour Clauses of the League of Nations, let me read the following from a

resolution which was adopted in August last year by the National Liberal Convention:
Resolved that the Committee recommends that the National Liberal Convention accept in their entirety as a part of the Liberal platform, in the spirit in which they have been framed and in so far as the special circumstances of the country will permit, the terms of the Labour Convention and general principles associated with the League of Nations and incorporated in the conditions of peace.
Unless hon. gentlemen opposite entertain a different view of the significance of these Labour Clauses, I cannot see why this Parliament should again be asked to approve them under the guise of expressing its approval of a treaty between Bulgaria and the Allied Powers. So far as the League of Nations is concerned, I believe there is only one opinion in this House and in this country. We all recognize that the League of Nations is in a formative stage, that its constitution is more or less nebulous at the present time, but that it has in it promise of great good for humanity and for mankind. We all desire to see the League of Nations made a success, and we cannot by approval after approval in this House make our position better known than it is!
Now I come to the last reason which my hon. friend gave as to why we should approve this Treaty. He says its adoption involves:
A reaffirmation by Parliament of its approval of the position and status accorded to Canada in the League of Nations and in the International Labour Organization and of its determination to maintain that status.
Well, Mr. Speaker, who has questioned the status which Canada has attained in the League of Nations in any way that calls for a further approval by this Parliament of the status which we already have? Some question has been raised in the House and outside of the House as to whether the status is in any way the new thing which my hon. friend would lead us to believe it is; ivhether it is not a recognition of something that was achieved long before the Administration, of which he is a member, had anything to do with the matter one way or another. I think we are all agreed, Sir, that whatever status we have we desire to maintain. There is not a man in Canada who would cede one inch of ground on the question of the status which Canada has as a nation, and I do not think there is any difference of view between any of us on that point. Yet my hon. friend seizes this opportunity to bring up this question of Canada's status as a nation. As I have 30}
listened to his remarks in this Chamber and read his speeches delivered outside oi the House, it has seemed to me that whether he intends to do so or not, he is seeking to convey the impression that we have a new status which we have never had before, and that it has in some mysterious way come about through some action of the Administration with which he is connected. I would be the last one to deny the Administration any credit to which I think it is entitled in regard to the service which it has rendered Canada in helping to maintain and clearly define a status which we have and which has long been admitted. But I think we are allowing full credit to the right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) and those associated with him, my right hon. friend the Minister of Justice (Hon. Mr. Doherty) and my right hon. friend the Secretary of State (Hon. A. L. Sifton) for their service to this Dominion in standing firm on the question of its status, when we give them credit for having dene their duty in a manner satisfactory to the people of the country.
Let me say at once that this whole question of Canada's position as a nation, when it comes to debating the matter, turns very largely on the meaning that we attach to the use of words. Hon. gentlemen opposite, on one or two occasions, have sought to make it appear that gentlemen on this side of the House, were, in some way or other, little Canadians who were endeavouring to minimize the status of their country, because they were unwilling to admit that, from certain points of view, strictly legal, or technical if you will, Canada was a nation with sovereign powers. Now, Mr. Speaker, no good purpose can be served by a contention of that kind. What is needed above everything else is clear and precise thinking on questions of this nature. Let me direct my, hon. friend's attention to his own language in order to illustrate my meaning. My hon. friend says that in approving this resolution we are endorsing the following principle:
The recognition that in any war in which the British Empire is engaged and in which Canada has taken part is a matter of concern to the people of Canada; that the terms of the Treaty of Peace bringing such a war to an end are also a matter of concern to the people of Canada and that such a treaty should not be ratified by His Majesty until it has been approved by Canada as of the five nations of the British Commonwealth.
My hon. friend will observe that in the first part of the paragraph he speaks of any war in which the British " Empire " is engaged and in which Canada takes part, while

in the last part of the clause he speaks of the five nations of the British "Commonwealth." In other words, we go into war as part of the British Empire and emerge from it as part of the British Commonwealth. My hon. friend knows as well as any one here that, according to one meaning of the term, you cannot say that an empire is a commonwealth; although, according to another meaning, the two terms are more or less identical. It is exactly the same in regard to the use of the word, " nation." If you wish to emphasize and lay particular stress on a certain legal technical point, then it cannot be said that Canada has all the rights, the privileges, and the attributes of a sovereign nation. But if, instead of looking merely at the letter of the word you look at the spirit of it, I think that everyone will be prepared to concede that, with the self-governing status which we have, we are to. all intents and purposes a nation. Now that is the point I would direct to the attention of my hon. friend. There is in Holy Writ a familiar passage which says: " The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life;" and that is as true in reference to the interpretation of constitutional documents as it is in reference to the Scriptures. If you rigidly follow the letter you kill what is real in the relationship between the different nations that comprise the Empire. If, on the other hand, you take the spirit of that relationship, then we distinctly have five nations forming a part of the British Empire or Commonwealth, by whichever name you choose to designate it. I should like to have that point made perfectly clear, and I trust I have done so in a way which will satisfy my hon. friend.
What, then, is the difference which exists between us and my hon. friend, or any of those associated with him, in regard to this question of the status of Canada? So far as I can see, we have no difference on what is fundamental as respects our status. Our difference is that hon. gentlemen opposite, and in particular my hon. friend, would have it appear, as I have already said, that our status is something newly acquired; that in some way or other which is inexplicable to us there has been a change within the last few years, and that we stand in a position now, from the legal and constitutional viewpoint, which we did not have before. We on this side of the House maintain that while there has been a clearer defining of the status of Canada, and while there has been unquestionably, and above all else, in the eyes of the world and from the international point of view, a recogni-

tion of the status of Canada through the splendid services of her armies overseas, and by reason of the valiant part they played in the great war, all these circumstances have served to emphasize and strengthen and make permanent a status which we already had and which we intend to maintain. If my hon. friend has any doubt at all on this point, I hope his mind will be disabused of any misgivings before I conclude.
By way of illustration of the point which I have been seeking to make clear, let me draw the attention of the House to the first Government^ notice of motion which appears on the Order Paper. In the name of my right hon. friend, the Minister of Justice, there appears the following proposed resolution:
Resolved, that a humble address be presented to His Most Excellent Majesty, the King, in the following words:
To the King's Most Excellent Majesty:
Most Gracious Sovereign:
We, Tour Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of Canada, in Parliament assembled, humbly approach Your Majesty, praying that you may graciously be pleased to give your consent to submit a measure to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, to amend the British North America Act 1867, in the manner following, or to the following effect- etc., etc.,	'
Note the words in that resolution. The prayer from this Parliament is not to the King to assent to an amendment of the British North America Act. It is to His Majesty to submit a measure to the Parliament of the United Kingdom to amend the British North America Act. If you take the letter of the Constitution alone will any one for one moment contend that this country is a sovereign nation to the degree of having all the rights and privileges which the British Parliament has when we have to go to the British Parliament to ask for an amendment to our Constitution? If you construe the Constitution according to the letter, you kill the spirit immediately because we know, as my hon. friend pointed out the other day, that if we ask the British Parliament to amend the Constitution according to the constitutional practice, it is almost certain to do so and, since it is almost certain to do so, we have to all intents and purposes the full rights and privileges of a sovereign people in reference to our own Constitution. But I would like to submit to my hon. friends opposite that perhaps it would be more in accord with the status which Canada has as a self-governing dominion or nation within the British Empire if, instead of presenting an address to His Majesty to ask

His Majesty's consent to the Parliament of the United Kingdom amending the British North America Act in the two particulars mentioned, the Government should consider the advisability of an address being presented to His Majesty to have powers given to the Parliament of Canada, subject to the concurrence of the several provinces of the Dominion, to amend the Constitution of Canada in such particulars as may be agreed upon as a result of conference between the provincial and federal authorities and approved by this Parliament and the legislatures of the different provinces.
T have here a copy of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia and of the Dominion of New Zealand. Both Australia and New Zealand have the right to amend their own constitutions in the particulars mentioned therein. Why should this Parliament not have the same powers to amend its own Constitution, subject to the safeguards that are necessary to comply with the spirit of the Act of Confederation, as have these other nations within the British Empire?
As I have said, our difference with hon. members opposite is not at all upon the question of Canada's being a nation but upon the inference which they would convey that national status, or to put it in the phraseology of the minister, equality of status with the other nations of the British Empire, is something newly acquired, something to be credited to the present Administration. What we say is that Canada's status as a nation from the constitutional point of view was established long before the present Administration was formed and in spite of the opposition of some of its own members and their associates in the past. If any one doubts this I will quote my hon. friend an authority which he will not question. Indeed, I am prepared to leave the question of Canada's status as between hon. gentlemen opposite and gentlemen on this side of the House to the testimony of my hon. friend himself.
I have in my hand a copy of a splendid address-one of the many splendid addresses which my hon. friend has delivered. It was not delivered since the war, or since the present Administration of which he is a member was formed, but it was delivered in Montreal on November 11,	1912-nearly
eight years ago. The address is entitled:
A Short History of the Beginning and Growth
of Constitutional Government in Canada.
In it my hon. friend has set forth the constitutional development of this country and to whom the credit should be given in
that connection. Let me, without quoting too many extracts, just read a few that are significant as showing the position which we on this side of the House are prepared not only to maintain but which we are glad to have the opportunity of advocating and of furthering to the extent of our ability. My hon. friend started in by saying:
In all discussions of the relations of Canada to Great Britain and the other parts of the Empirei three questions (appear to (be uppermost in the public mind: Our political relations, our trade arrangements, and the defence of the Empire.
I am glad we have with us this evening a descendant of Papineau, a man, who, in the early history of our country, struggled to secure for the people of jhis province what William Lyon Mackenzie was struggling to secure for the people of Upper Canada-the right to manage their own affairs; and while we may not agree with the methods either pursued, we must agree that they were fighting against grave abuses and were struggling to redress serious injustice to the mass of the people of the two provinces.
The Rebellion of 1837, and the exceedingly able report of Lord Durham on the political conditions in Canada which followed the Rebellion constitute a convenient starting point for our discussion. Permit me to recall to your minds the records of the two political parties in this country from the Rebellion of 1837 down to the year 1911 on the three questions I have mentioned.
I am not going to quote at any great length, but just let me give one or two sentences.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Whose speech is that?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: It is the speech of my hon. friend the present Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Rowell): He says:
The four main events in the development of our political relations during this period were: (1) the struggle for and securing of responsible government: (2) Canadian Confederation, including the purchase of the Northwest Territories; (3) the evolution of Canada from the position of a colony of Great Britain to that of one of the free self-governing nations of the Empire; (4) the creation of a truly Imperial organization under the name of "The Imperial Conference."
I wish to remind hon. members that this is an address which was delivered on the 11th of November, 1912. The Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918. It was in 1912 that my hon. friend was speaking. After mentioning the great fight for responsible government, he says:
Around this issue the battle waged for years, Baldwin and Lafontaine leading the Liberal forces,	.
What further does my hon. friend say? He says:

The Conservative party in Great Britain clung just as tenaciously to government by Downing Street as did the Conservatives in this country.
Then he goes on:
The only party that believed in responsible government as being essential to the progress and prosperity of Canada, and that the granting of this right of self-government would not only not weaken but strengthen our loyalty to the Crown and the Mother Country, was the Liberal party in Canada.
My hon. friend makes the position clearer when he declares:
The result of the Conservative policy was the Family Compact, the Rebellion of 1837, and the long and bitter struggle which retarded the progress and development of Canada, and divided the people of Canada into two hostile camps. The result of the Liberal policy was the securing for Canada-
Listen to this:
-and ultimately not only for Canada but the other colonies of the Empire-of the right to manage their own affairs, and with that right the peace and progress of the country and a great increase in affection for and the desire to maintain British connections.
Then my hon. friend says:
This great discovery of colonial self-government, which, according to Sir Herbert Samuel, is one of the two great contributions in the sphere of Government which the British people have given to the world, was made, was wrought out and secured by the Liberal party in Canada.
My hon. friend goes on to say:
Their labour has made the Empire as it exists to-day possible.
I shall pass over what my hon. friend has had to say about the question of Confederation and the part played by the two parties in this country in that connection, and what he has said about the acquirement of the Northwest territory. He concluded, however, that part of his address by saying:
Here again it was the policy of the Liberal leader and the Liberal party which forced this great question to the front, and was so largely instrumental in securing these territories for Canada.
Now, Mr. Speaker, lest it might appear that we were getting away from this all important question of the status of Canada, and Canada's status as a nation within the British Empire, I am pleased to see that my hon. friend has devoted a considerable part of his address to that one particular subject. " The changed status of Canada," he calls it. Now let me read what he says in that connection:
When Sir Wilfrid Laurier went to England to attend the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria-
That was in 1897, 23_ years ago-

In one of his very first public utterances he took the position that Canada was no longer a colony but a nation. He said:	" The authority
of the Queen does not rest on military force, but from the Pacific to the Atlantic rests on the cheerful allegiance of five million people who feel themselves a nation. The feeling dominating Canada is one of pride in her local autonomy and legislative liberty connected with Imperial unity."
That is the end of the quotation from Sir Wilfrid Laurier's speech and my hon. friend goes on:
Throughout his stay in Great Britain Sir Wilfrid consistently maintained the position that Canada had reached the status of a nation. When he returned to the city of Montreal, and the citizens extended such a memorable welcome to him he again emphasized that position. He said:	He had longed to live to
see the day when Canada would no longer be a colony, but would be a free nation within the Empire, and he was glad to be able to say he had lived to see that day.
Mr. Speaker, whatever doubt there may be on the other side of the House, as to Canada's status, there can be no doubt as to the position which we of the Liberal party of Canada have had in regard thereto. My hon. friend has stated it accurately, he has stated it truly, and as he has stated it here every one of us is prepared to see that it is maintained along those lines. But what was the position-and here I should like to point out there are times and seasons for all things-of hon. gentlemen opposite? To-day they are saying a great deal about Canada being a nation. They are able to do so, why? Because the struggle which the Liberal party maintained for a quarter of a century in this country has at last, through the great service of our men overseas, come before the world in its true and bold form. Sir Wilfrid Laurier said: "Let us have the attributes of a nation and when the time of stress comes Canada will respond and do her duty by the Empire." Was not his prophesy fully fulfilled? Was it not because we had the status of a nation, because we believed we had the status of a nation, that Canada played the part which she played in this great war? I think one of the most significant things in the history not only of Canada but of the world is the fact that when this war came on, so far as I am aware, the British Government asked nothing of this Dominion; that everything that was done was done voluntarily and freely by the people of Canada through their Government. How did that come about? It came about as a consequence of Canada recognizing that she had the status of a nation, that she had said: "Recognize our status as



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a nation and we will do our part." Had she been held in a colonial position is it possible to believe that she would have responded as she did at that time?
But, as I have said, it is one thing to proclaim Canada a nation to-day; it was another thing to proclaim Canada a nation twenty-five years ago in the heart of the British Empire across the seas, and that is what Sir Wilfrid Laurier did. He did not wait, he spoke, he blazed the way. There at the Queen's Jubilee when all the nations were looking on he took that position and from that time he fought steadily to see that it was maintained in every particular. I might quote not only the address my hon. friend has referred to, but also a speech which Sir Wilfrid Laurier made at the constitutional club in London, England, on July 7, 1902. I have in my hand a report which appeared in the London Times on the day following and what is the expression used there? Every member of the House will recall the expression and the occasion of its use. Sir Wilfrid Laurier said:
You may search the annal3 of history so far as the human eye can pierce into them, and you shall not find a parallel to the spectacle of which you are to-day the witness. The Empire of Rome in the heyday of her splendid power never reached that level of moral attitude. And the reason is obvious. The Empire of Rome was composed of slave states; the British Empire is a galaxy of free nations.
That is where we get for the first time the expression of the British Empire as a group of free nations. Sir Wilfrid Laurier used the striking, the poetic phrase "a galaxy of free nations." Hon. gentlemen opposite to-day use the expression "A community of free nations," or "A cluster of free nations," or " A family of free nations." Call it by any name you like the essence of the whole relationship is in the phrase Sir Wilfrid Laurier used, " A galaxy of free nations," and from that moment up to the present time we have sought to maintain that position-that is, all of us who have fought for Liberal tradition and sought to maintain it.
Now, what was the attitude of the Conservative press towards Sir Wilfrid Laurier when he took that stand? What was the attitude of some of those who belong to the party opposite? My hon. friend the 'Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. Rowell) has told the country. He says in this address:
What was the attitude of the Conservative press in regard to this? They charged Sir Wilfrid with being a separatist.
He goes on to quote from the Mail and Empire and he mentions that other Conservative journals and leaders of the Conservative party took the same position and indulged in the same criticism. He adds:
They failed to perceive that which Sir Wilfrid Laurier and those who shared his views saw, that there can be no permanent basis of union and no permanent plan for co-operation between the peoples of the Empire with a dominant race living in one country to which those living in a self-governing Dominion would be more or less subject; that the future of the Empire as well as its strength, and stability depended upon a frank recognition of equality in the status of the people in the selfgoverning Dominions with those of the Mother Country.
Note those words. I imagine my hon. friend might be tempted to say that while we had sought to maintain a certain status, we had not equality of status as we have it to-day. But here are his own words: either he spoke what was true then, or he did not speak what was true then. I think my hon. friend will say that he believes he was speaking the truth then as he believes he is speaking the truth to-day and at that time (1912) he said:	Sir Wilfrid
Laurier took the position that the strength of the British Empire and its stability depended upon a frank recognition of equality in the status of the people in the selfgoverning Dominions with those of the Mother Country. My hon. friend says further:
This assertion of our national status was necessary for the people of Canada to develop our own national self-consciousness and our own self-respect. It was necessary for the people of Great Britain in order that they might realize that they were dealing not with subjects but with fellow citizens. That this is our position, and that we are now a nation, is not only recognized by the statesmen of Canada but by the statesmen of the Mother Country.
The other day my hon. friend asked permission of the House to place on record certain excerpts from speeches delivered by the Right Hon. Arthur Balfour, the Right Hon. Lord Milner and by General Smuts. He told the House that the reason he wished to place these particular extracts on Hansard was to make it perfectly plain that not only was the status of Canada recognized here among Canadians, but that it was also recognized by the great leaders of thought and opinion overseas. Well, my hon. friend adopted exactly the same method in 1912, and he placed on record then in the course of his address before the Montreal Reform Club quotations from British statesmen to precisely the same effect. I shall not take the time of the House to read
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them, but instead of quoting General Smuts he quoted Sir Frederick Pollock. He also quoted Mr. Balfour and Mr. Asquith. He quoted all these gentlemen, for what purpose? To show that our position as a nation was not only recognized by the statesmen of Canada, but was equally recognized by the statesmen of the Mother Country. He said:
Nowhere have I seen this changed relationship more clearly stated than in an article on the Imperial Conference written by the editor of the Round Table. Referring to the resolution passed by the Colonial Conference in 1907, establishing the Imperial Conference, this writer says:
" This resolution"-
-that is, a resolution passed in 1907, when, I think, my hon. friend for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) was present-
-" established the status of the Dominions as national entities, entirely distinct from that which inhabited the British Isles. It recognized that the basis of Imperial organisation was the co-operation of live nations, not the centralization of power in the hands of the British Government as an Imperial Parliament. It finally destroyed the older conception of Imperial development, as a gradual re-union of the colonies with the Mother Country through representatives in either of the British Houses of Parliament." .
But, Mr. Speaker, there are two or three more clauses that I wish to read. These are, I think, perhaps the most conclusive of any of the utterances cxf my hon. friend-and I again remind the House that these statements were made in the city of Montreal on November 11, 1912:
Some of the most important changes in our British constitutional system were not brought about by any Act of Parliament or legislature, but by the demand on the one hand for new or enlarged rights and powers, and the recognition of these rights and powers on the other. This momentous change from a colony of Great Britain to that of one of the free nations of the Empire did not require any Act of Parliament -British or Canadian-for its consummation It simply required a demand on our part for a new status and the acceptance and recognition of that new status on the part of Great Britain
I venture to suggest-
It gives me, Mr. Speaker, particular pleasure to read these words at this time and iir this place-
I venture to suggest that when the history of our constitutional development ds written among the great things that Sir Wilfrid Laurier has done none will appear greater than his perception of the fact that the status of Canada must be changed and that this change must be brought about, not by legislative enactment, but by the demand on our part for a new status, persisted' in until the people of Canada were convinced of its necessity; persisted in until the statesmen of Great Britain were convinced that it was right. By this great achievement Sir Wilfrid has enlarged the liberties and

improved the status of every Canadian citizen, and what he has done for Canada he has done for all the self-governing Dominions.
My hon. friend uttered those words while Sir Wilfrid Laurier was alive. I ask him: Will he not be the first to say that they are equally true now that Sir Wilfrid Laurier is jio longer here?
Newton Wesley Rowell: Does my hon. friend want an answer?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I should be pleased to receive an answer.


Newton Wesley Rowell: I say undoubtedly they are true. And what is true of Sir Wilfrid Laurier is equally true of Sir Robert Borden in connection with the work of the Peace Conference and the League of Nations.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon.
friend's statement just made in such a straightforward and honourable way is interesting not only in regard to the meed of praise which he is prepared to concede to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, but also because of his reference to Sir Robert Borden.
Let me repeat here, Mr. Speaker, that my purpose in quoting my hon. friend is not in any way to belittle the work of Sir Robert Borden or of the hon. gentlemen who were associated with him. I would say frankly that Sir Robert Borden and his colleagues stood firm for the maintenance of Canada's status-they did their duty by Canada in that regard. If they had done less they would have been derelict in their duty and would have been liable to the censure of this Parliament. Having done their duty, and done it well, they are entitled to the thanks of this Parliament and of this country.
But, Sir, let me add this from the words of my hon. friend in regard to what Sir Robert Borden and his colleagues have been able to achieve. They are the very next words that appear in the speech from which I have been quoting:
The welcome which Mr. Borden and his colleagues received last June was only made possible because of the work Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his colleagues had done for Canada.
I will ask my hon. friend if those words are not equally true?
'Mr. ROWELL: If my hon. friend wishes an answer I am quite prepared to give it. I believe those words are equally true. I am prepared to give credit to whom it is due, and I think the other side should be just as ready to give credit ro Sir Robert Borden and his colleagues too.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I hope we are.
I should like to make it perfectly clear that in this matter we are not seeking for honours; all we wish is to have the position made clear and plainly stated. As between us, if you will, honours may be evenly divided. What I wish to make perfectly plain is what my hon. friend himself has emphasized, namely that the welcome which Sir Robert Borden subsequently received was only made possible because of the work that Sir Wilfrid Laurier and his colleagues had done for Canada.
This is the next paragraph:
To-day-this was 1912-we stand in our relationships and in our negotiations, both in the mind of the people of the mother country and in the mind of the people of the other selfgoverning dominions, as one of the five free nations that go to make up the Empire. It is again the work of Liberal leaders and the triumph of the Liberal policy which has laid the broad foundation upon which alone the future strength and security of the Empire can rest.
Just one word in regard to the development of" an Imperial organization. My hon. friend went on to say:
Some of our Conservative friends are very fond of talking about Imperial organization, they are fond of talking about representation in some Imperial body, they are talking about Canada having some voice in Imperial affairs.
I think this will interest particularly my hon. friend for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding):
While they have been talking and dreaming the Liberal leaders of Canada and the Liberal leaders of Great Britain and of the other Dominions, have been creating a truly Imperial organization for dealing with Imperial affairs.
We have in the Imperial Conference a truly representative body which, up to the present time, has proved itself capable of dealing with all important matters of Imperial concern ....
It is important for us to bear in mind some of the characteristics of this Conference. It recognizes the national status of the Dominio'ns, as distinct from the mother country; it is truly representative in its character, being composed of the Prime Ministers of the mother country and self-governing Dominions; it is responsible in that each Prime Minister has back of him a parliamentary majority, and therefore has the power to implement the resolutions to which he gives assent; it recognizes the autonomy of all the governments and no resolution affecting any particular government can become effective unless assented to by it.
And this further word:
But Sir Wilfrid's contribution towards securing for us a safe and effective Imperial organization is not limited to a suggestion as to the form and work of the Imperial Conference. He has also done good work for Canada and the Empire in assisting to defeat proposals for Imperial organization which would have seriously impaired our rights of
self-government. In so doing, he was not only fighting for Canada, but he was fighting for the whole British Empire. '
That leads me to conclude by referring to the concluding remarks of my hon. friend the other day. After he had spoken at considerable length of the status of Canada, he said something to the effect that the choice to-day was between remaining part of the group of free nations comprising the British Empire and, on the one hand, either reverting to the old Colonial status, or, on the other, going in for complete independence. All of us will agree that it is unthinkable to speak about any return to the old colonial status; but my hon. friend did not put his hand on the real danger when he spoke .about the alternative being complete independence. The thing about which we on this side of the House are alarmed is not independence or the maintenance of the status which we have as one of the nations comprising the British Empire. The thing we are concerned about and what we fear is the danger of swinging to the other extreme and developing a form of centralised Imperialism which we think would be thoroughly objectionable so far as the interests of tins country are concerned. It is not to any status of Canada as one of the nations within the British Empire that we take exception. We wish :o see that position maintained and strengthened; but we do not wish to see, through any insidious or other method, a condition of affairs brought about whereby the full autonomy of this country and o' this Parliament will in any way be lessened or impaired by any scheme of Imperialism which will lead to a centralisation of the control of the British Empire, instead of the maintenance of the free self-governing position which we are privileged to enjoy at the present time.
We believe that position can be maintained by holding to the attitude of conference and consultation which was developed under the old Liberal administration; that it is possible for the British Empire to become, as regards the League of Nations, a league within a league, if you like, for the preservation of freedom amongst the different nations of the world. That position will be maintained by the attitude of conference and co-operation; it will not be maintained by a development which will lead to the loss of either of those features through any centralising tend-
5 p.m. ency one way or another. So, to make plain the position that we on this side take in regard to the question of status and what has happened in the last few
m

years, we would say that the change that has taken place in Canada's status as a result of the war-and there has been in the last few years an emphasis which there had not been for many years previously-has not been any change in the nature of our status, but has been, as regards the British Empire and relations within the British Empire, a clearer defining of a status already existing. As regards the world, there has been an international recognition of that status such as never existed hitherto in the history of the British Empire, and for that international recognition we are first and last, and shall always be most indebted to the services of Canada's armies across the seas. That is where the credit belongs for the international recognition which has come; and as I have already said, as regards the clearer definition of the status, we are prepared and are glad to concede to the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) and his colleagues that they have done their duty well in maintaining that status firmly.
So long as, in the last analysis, all matters pertaining to Canada in her external or inter-imperial relations are made subject to the approval of this Parliament, so long as no action can be taken of which the Parliament of Canada does not have ample opportunity to approve, we shall feel that to all intents and purposes, we are a nation in the true sense of the word. But let the sovereignty of this Parliament be impaired as respects anything that concerns Canada in either her inter-imperial or international relations, and we shall feel that the position of Canada as a nation has been menaced to that extent.


Right Hon. C. J. DOHERTY (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, I shall have occasion to say, with regard tp what the hon. gentleman (Mr. King) has said, some words that will, unfortunately, not be words of congratulation. I hasten, therefore, at the very outset, to offer him some words of congratulation for which I think his speech calls. I congratulate him for permitting us to listen to a different tale from what we .listened to at the last session of this House when we spoke about Canada's status as a nation. I have not time to quarrel with the hon. gentleman about his reservations;
I have not time to quarrel with him with regard to the question as to what particular Canadian or Canadians we owe the fact of Canada's status as a nation. I am content to congratulate him and to congratulate this country that he, as the leader of the great Liberal party-and at the last session we expected that the leaders of the great
	.
Liberal party would have taken the attitude that he took, but we were disappointed- with, as I say, certain reservations which he thought necessary to make for fear that somebody who never claimed any credit, might get it, has recognized, speaking for his party, that Canada has achieved the status of a nation within the great British Commonwealth-if he will permit me that word, as he does not seem to like it-and a nation standing on a footing of equality with the other nations of the Commonwealth. I congratulate him that he has agreed with us on that. We were amazed when people did not agree with us on that. We are gratified now to find that, on second thought and under a second leader, the Liberal party, as represented in this House, does agree with us.	.
I shall have occasion to refer to that-portion of the hon. gentleman's address in which he belittled the importance of that by thinking it worth while to enter into a discussion as to who got it for us, as though it were not manifest to all of- us, and as though any Canadian with heart and head large enough to be worthy to call himself a Canadian, were not prepared to recognize the obvious fact that that status was the result of a growth, a growth to which succeeding statesmen, one after another, contributed. Let me say at once, that I take off my hat without hesitation in respect to the memory of Sir Wilfrid Laurier for the great contribution that he made to that growth. All that surprises me is that the hon. gentleman (Mr. King) should have thought it necessary to quarrel with some imaginary person who had .set up a claim that in the twinkling of an eye Canada had been made a nation, and made a nation by some one individual yesterday or the day before. If he would have taken the pains to read what was said in this House at the last session, he would have seen that no such contention was ever made. I ask him now, whether by or on behalf of anybody who had the honour to represent Canada at the Conference in Paris, any such claim was made as that we had made Canada a nation. Mr. Speaker, I shall have occasion to refer later to that very long and very laboured part of the hon. gentleman's address.
Let me go back to the beginning and take up some of the things that lamentably call for answer, if it be merely for the purpose of giving information to the hon. gentleman about some things that he does not know. The hon. gentleman said that this Treaty was brought before this House

merely as an excuse- for the making of a speech, and he -asked why there was any need to -bring the Treaty before the House, because in the first -place, he said, there was nothing in it that related particularly to the Dominion of Canada, and in the second place, nothing that this Parliament might say about it -could have the slightest effect upon the binding nature of that Treaty or alter its provisions by one iota,- by the dotting of an "i" or the crossing of a "t," I think he said. He said that this Parliament could do nothing in the matter because the Treaty was signed some months ago, and signed not only on behalf of the other nations of the British Empire, but on behalf of Canada, and he -asked, "What are you going to do about it?"
The hon. gentleman does not know that treaties do not bind until they are ratified. The hon. gentleman who has talked -so eloquently -about- our status as one of the nations of the British Empire apparently does not know that this Treaty was signed by the British Empire. He does not know that when you want the signature of the British Empire you get the -signatures of all the nations that constitute the British Empire. The hon. gentleman does not know that, just as he does not know what a most elementary knowledge of international law would have taught him, that treaties -do not bind until they -are ratified. He does not know that when the British Empire proceeds to ratify a treaty it takes the whole British Empire to do it. Why, the hon. gentleman whom I -have congratulated on -sharing our views on Canada's national status, has not quite fully grasped what it means. He still imagines, as other hon. gentlemen opposite who spoke on this matter at the last session of the House evidently imagined, that-thereisa something somewhere which i-s the British Empire and which makes treaties, and that there is a Canada standing off on the side, and that the British Empire is making and ratifying treaties, or refusing to ratify treaties while Canada stands on the side not interested in the slightest degree.


William Stevens Fielding: Does my hon. friend mean to say that if this Treaty be not approved by the Parliament of Canada it will -not be binding on -the whole British Empire just the same, having been approved by His Majesty the King?


Charles Joseph Doherty: This Treaty has not as yet been ratified by His Majesty the King. His Majesty the King, as the constitutional sovereign of Canada just as much as he is the constitutional -sovereign of the United
Kingdom, has adopted as his guide of action that he will not ratify -a treaty binding upon the entire Empire until he has had the advice of the Governments o-f each and every one of the self-governing nations that make up -the Empire. His Majesty the King does not sign on behalf of the Empire because the United Kingdom tells him to do so.


William Stevens Fielding: My hon. friend has hardly met my question. Is -the approval of this Treaty by this Dominion essential to the binding effect of the Treaty?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Yes. In order that the Treaty shall bind the British Empire it is necessary that it -shall be executed with the approval of all the self-governing nations of the British Empire, and Canada it one of them.


William Stevens Fielding: And if this Parliament -should for -any reason not approve, this Bulgarian Treaty would have no effect?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I am not -saying it would have no effect, but it would have no effect so far as Canada is concerned. It would not bind the British Empire. It would bind, -if you will, -such par-ts of the British Empire as chose to ratify it, but it would not bind the whole British Empire. Have hon. gentlemen read -the Treaty?


William Stevens Fielding: No.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I am not surprised then.


William Stevens Fielding: There is not an hon. member of this House who has read it.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Much is now clear to me.-Hon. gentlemen -have not read the Treaty.


William Stevens Fielding: Does my hon. friend say he has read it?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I have read it and reread it, and I did not get very -far into it until I found out that one of the parties to the Treaty is the British Empire.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Did my hon. friend find any -mention o-f Canada in the Treaty?


Charles Joseph Doherty: Certainly I did. In the very opening paragraphs of the Treaty His Majesty -the King of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions overseas -and as Emperor of India,-acting in those capacities for the entire Empire- when he came to tell for whom and through whom he acted thought it worth while to mention Canada.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My right hon. friend has not answered the question I asked. He says he read the Treaty through and I have asked him to be kind enough to inform the House whether on any page of that Treaty there is any mention whatever of Canada, not in the signatures but in the text of the Treaty.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Does my hon. friend wish to know whether there was some special thing that was provided for Canada?	.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: No; that is not the question.


Charles Joseph Doherty: There was no mention cf Canada because we were not looking for anything special. But, Mr. Speaker, it is significant that this question should be asked by the hon. gentleman who boasts of his pride in Canada's status as a nation standing on a footing of equality. What is the tacit suggestion of his question? It is virtually this: Unless we wanted some particular thing for Canada, this great nation, of which he is so proud, should not have had anything to do with the Treaty. My hon. friend said he did not read the Treaty. Let me point out to him-


William Stevens Fielding: Will the minister pardon me? It was I who said that I had not read the Treaty. I tried to do so, but I may confess that I did not read every line, for I found it too arduous a task.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I do not care to go further than to point out who are parties to the Treaty and how they are constituted. The party for whom His Majesty is acting is the British Empire, but His Majesty knows what it is that constitutes the Empire and he therefore informed those with whom he was contracting that when he contracted for the British Empire he did so on behalf of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, etc. He made it clear that he contracted for Canada, Australia and the other Dominions through their plenipotentiaries, and what constituted the signature of the British Empire was the combination of all those signatures. That is why I say that if you strike off one of those signatures, or if ratification fails on the part of one of those nations, you cannot have the signature nor the ratification of the entire British Empire. About that there seems to be no room for question. It is for them who made the contract to ratify it. If the contract could not be made without the participation of all the constituent nations of the Empire, how, I ask, is it to

be ratified without similar participation on the part of'those nations? This is one of those things which to me seem so obvious that I can only wonder that people do not perceive it.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I dare say the minister remembers that Lord Milner, speaking for the Crown authorities of Great Britain, submitted an opinion to the Canadian Government in regard to the signing of the German Treaty in which he told us that our ratification of that Treaty was not necessary?


Charles Joseph Doherty: 
Mr. BELAND:: Taking, for example the German Treaty, suppose that four or five nations of the British Empire had given their assent to the ratification and one had refused that assent, what, in the opinion of the minister, would have been the action of His Majesty?	t


Charles Joseph Doherty: It is perhaps rash foi
me to answer a question based upon the hypothesis which the hon. gentleman puts. I cannot tell what His Majesty would have done. That is something that I would not like to take upon myself to say but I do venture this expression of opinion-I might say conviction-that whatever His Majesty did in the absence of the assent of one of the self-governing nations of the Empire, would not constitutionally be binding upon the entire Empire and more particularly would not he binding upon that nation of the Empire which had withheld its assent. What would be the effect upon the existence of the Empire of a divergence of that kind is another question. What would be the necessary consequence of such a situation arising is something the discussion of which I would not like to enter upon at the present moment. My impression is that the consequence might he very grave indeed. But this after all is only a consequence of the fact that the great thing that holds this Empire together is that we have so far found it possible to get together on the great, vital and important questions, and for my part I have abundant confidence that for years, and years,

and years-I might venture to say centuries -we shall continue in that happy position. It is not necessary for me to undertake to prophesy what will happen after the nations of the British Empire disappear. All I am concerned with is to point out that in order to get the evidence of their agreement you must have the action of all of them.
The hon. gentleman, in dilating upon the entire absence of reason for bringing this Treaty here, intimated that at the last session of Parliament there had been no dif-fence of opinion about the League of Nations. He seemed to have entirely forgotten that the hon. gentleman who sits next to him (Mr. Fielding) had proposed to amend the League of Nations and to put in a reservation to one of its provisions.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Is it not true that the reservation proposed by my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) last year was almost identical with the interpretation of clause 10 given by the Minister of Justice himself?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I am not criticising the amendment which was proposed. I am only pointing out that the hon. gentleman says that there was no difference of opinion upon it when as a matter of fact there was, in the opinion of the hon. gentleman, a sufficient substantial difference of opinion that he thought it necessary to divide the House upon it. Now they tell us that they took up the time of the House with a division about something that did not differ materially from what the Minister of Justice thought.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Just for the sake of accuracy in the matter, as I recollect the amendment of my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) it was to the effect that in so far as military service was concerned, nothing Parliament was doing in approving the Treaty would countenance Canada's taking part in future wars excepting with the approval of the Parliament of Canada. That was the substance of the amendment and that is practically what we are contending for to-day.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I do not think the hon. gentleman has quite accurately analysed the effect of the amendment proposed but I do not believe we would gain anything by threshing out what the amendment was or whether it should have been adopted or not. I only mentioned it to show that there was something or other that arose in connection with the League of Nations which necessitated dividing this House and that did not seem to be quite consistent with

the statement that there had been no difference of opinion in connection with the provisions of the League of Nations. The hon. gentleman also dealt with some observations of the President of the Privy Council in which he had reiterated our views in regard to the League of Nations, the Labour clauses, and other provisions. It may be that it was not absolutely necessary to do that but after all it was very eloquently and effectively done and I think this House will quite forgive the President of the Privy Council for having impressed these things not only upon the House and the public of Canada but upon a public that is wider than the public of Canada. The same thing might be said in this connection in reference to matters in regard to which the position of Canada was reaffirmed in the speech of the hon. gentleman.
The hon. gentleman (Mr. King) also dilated upon the possible distinction between what we meant when we said that Canada was a nation and something else that might be considered essential to Canada's ^being a nation. I do not grasp what the distinction is that the hon. gentleman is seeking to make. I do not realize that there may be respects in which Canada is not an absolutely sovereign state, but I confess I know of no national attribute of which Canada is not possessed. It does pot prevent Canada's being a nation that she should be joined and associated with other nations, acting in co-operation with them in the partnership that we call either the British Empire or the British Commonwealth, as you will. As to the meaning to ,be attached to either of these words, I think if you applied the technical meaning to the word " Empire," the old-fashioned meaning which implied dominating over o'ther powers, it would be incorrect to talk about the British Empire. The domination feature has long since disappeared, and certainly so far as the nations that compose that Empire are concerned, to state that we are all now on a footing of equality, would describe our relation to each other, and the term " Empire" is not perhaps the one to apply to a combination of nations so constituted. From my own part I think that " Commonwealth " is a most excellent word, but I would not quarrel with the words employed, anyway.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am afraid that my right hon. friend has misunderstood what I said. I was not taking exception to the word " Commonwealth in fact, I prefer the use of the word " Commonwealth " to the use of the word " Empire." What I was endeavouring to point

out was that the question of determining the status of Canada as a nation depends entirely upon the meaning to be attached to the term made use of. According to the way in which the word " Empire " is used, it may mean an excellent thing, or it may mean the very opposite. The same with regard to the word " Nation."


Charles Joseph Doherty: I think there is a distinction to be made between a sovereign state and a nation. The latter may be a nation and not a full sovereign state. I do not propose to enter into the question of whether or not Canada is entitled to, or claims to be a full sovereign state. The hon. gentleman has discussed the question of Canada's status, and here I want to be careful; I am not claiming anything for anybody; I am only stating a fact. At the conference of 1917 we had the catagorical announcement by the United Kingdom, and assented to of course by all the Dominions, that the status of Canada, and of the Dominions within the Empire, was the status of nations standing on a footing of equality. We got this much further, and I should not say that, because the one thing I want to avoid is the evoking of discussion on the ground of what we are claiming for ourselves. We are happy to rejoice over what Canada has got, and let the glory go to anybody who thinks it is worth while to hunt out and claim that glory for himself. So long as Canada has the great substantial benefit accruing from that status our hearts are rejoiced and are proud for Canada's sake. What did happen that was made manifest to the world was this: We had been clearly and unmistakably acknowledged to he in the family circle in the resolution of 1917. There remained for us, if I may use the expression, to be taken out and introduced into the society of nations as a nation among the other nations. The old Mother Nation took us up and presented us to the other nations and said: These are the nations of my family; we will not stop to talk about definitions, I am bringing them into the society of nations; that is the society they are corning into. That is what happened. And that I contend is of very great value, not as making us a nation, but as giving evidence that the world recognizes.
The hon. gentleman referred to a couple of resolutions which were upon the Order Paper as indicating in some way a lack of completeness in respect of national status on our part. Now nobody has ever disputed that legally the legislative power is supreme in the Parliament of the United Kingdom
and it follows that the British North America Act-though in reality and in substance a compact between the provinces is in form an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Such being the case when that Act has to be modified we have to go through the form of addressing ourselves to that Parliament of the United Kingdom. But to suggest 'that that throws any doubt upon our constitutional status as a nation within this Empire I think only implies a confusion between what may be the requirements of law and what, side by side with those requirements of law, may be the constitutional rights of the nations or peoples within the Empire. We have the two things, we have the law and the constitution, and they do not always agree-sometimes they are in absolute contradiction.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That was
exactly my position.


Charles Joseph Doherty: The hon. gentleman
went on to say, apropos of this condition, that what we ought to have, instead of what we are asking in these resolutions, is a power in this Parliament, subject to the concurrence of the provinces, to amend our own constitution. In that I am most heartily at one with the hon. gentleman. I am not quite certain how the idea came to him but it does happen to be a fact that before the hon. gentleman made the suggestion, before this matter arose in the House at all, I had taken up that very question with the attorneys general of the several provinces and in discussing these resolutions on the Order Paper with some gentlemen upon the opposite side of the House, I so informed them. I do not know whether that was the way the idea came back to the hon. gentleman or not; but if it should not he so it only shows how great minds naturally converge upon the same idea.


Henri Sévérin Béland: The leader of the Opposition spoke to me about it last year.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I am glad that the hon. gentleman (Mr. King) has given due reflection to the subject but the fact is as I have stated. I rather inferred, therefore, that the way I have explained. is the way it came about. At all events I am glad to be confirmed now in my own view. I am all the more glad to find that I was confirmed in advance by the leader of the Opposition. We will have the opportunity, I hope, to co-operate in bringing about the desired result and we will not stop to quar-

rel about who is entitled to the credit of having thought about it first.
I was going to say one or two words with regard to the question as to what party did most to make Canada a nation. It is discouraging, it makes one wonder whether we have reached a national size after all when we cannot venture to congratulate each other and advance in our national status without at once falling into a bickering dispute as to who did the most to bring it about. I might go back to the past and claim for the men of the Conservative party-for the men of the Liberal-Conservative party at all events-


An Hon. MEMBER:: Hear, hear.


Charles Joseph Doherty: -the party of Cartier and Macdonald, who did so much to build up this Confederation,-I might claim that .they at the outset, accomplished perhaps as much as my friend's distinguished ancestor, (William Lyon .Mackenzie) and Lodis Joseph Papineau, by their readiness to stand up for the national status of Canada in those days.


Joseph Archambault: They did not take the same chances.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Sir George Cartier took his share in the movement, and his name to-day stands high in the regard of all Canadians.
The hon. gentleman cited from the speech of the President of the Privy Council that one of the great steps in the building up of this nation was Confederation. I had an idea that John A. Macdonald had something to do with Confederation.


Andrew Ross McMaster: He opposed it to the very last; George Brown brought about Confederation


Charles Joseph Doherty: I had the idea that
Macdonald and Cartier and many of their followers were Conservatives. And yet the hon. gentleman cites from a speech that recognizes, and rightly recognizes, what an immense step in the building up of our national edifice was Confederation, and then he says, "The Liberal party did it all."


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I beg my hon. friend's pardon-


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order. The hon. member can only interrupt the Minister of Justice for the purpose of asking a question.


Charles Joseph Doherty: If I have fallen into an error I shall be glad to be set right.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I merely rise to correct a mis-statement. My hon. friend

asserted that I had said that, the Liberal party did it all. If certain names were not mentioned in what I quoted, it is not my fault; I was simply quoting from the speech of the President of the Privy Council.


Charles Joseph Doherty: At all events, my hon. friend impressed upon this House that the President of the. Privy Council had at some time taken that attitude. Well, the President of the Privy Council is a very eloquent advocate of the causes in which he believes, and I do not want to criticize what he may have said in earlier days. We all can recognize in him, at all events, the capacity for appreciating the light as it becomes brighter and more widespread,-


Some Hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Charles Joseph Doherty: -and I have not any doubt that to-day he will find a place for the men I have mentioned among those who contributed to the building up of this nation.
I might cite speeches of Sir Robert Borden and of certain of his colleagues in the course of the Naval Debate of 1910, and I might also cite his speeches made at the very centre of the Empire in 1912 in which he stated in no uncertain tones that Canada would not be the adjunct of any nation whatsoever, nay, not even an adjunct of the British Empire.
Gentlemen, let us be fair all round. Let us recognize that there is a Canada in which we all have a share; let us recognize that part of our great inheritance as Canadians is the distinguished men that Canada has given us in the past,-and some of whom remain with us to the present day; let us recognize that those men are the pride and the glory of the Canada that in its entirety is the country of each one of us, and let us try to recall what they have done rather than say, "It was I; it was not you." Let us say: "That is what Canadians in the past did, and it is by deeds of that kind that this Canadian nation has been built up." And allow me to add a word-in which I am only joining with the hon. gentleman, -let us never forget that in rendering comparatively easy the fruition of that work the coping stone that confirmed the status we all rejoice in was laid by the soldiers who proved, as by no other means it could be proved, that Canadians had in them the stuff that made them worthy to have their country recognized as a nation, so that Canada could take her place in bearing the burdens of the world, and that having so taken her place, without counting the cost or the sacrifice, she was entitled to the open, ample and ungrudging recognition of

the world that she stood as a nation among nations, entitled to be heard not only concerning matters that interested her immediately, but to be heard in council when the Great Nations gathered together to devise what was best for the world and best for *mafikind. Let us see if from now on we cannot start out with one subject upon which we can be jn agreement.
As I have said, I would willingly admit that all of the credit belongs to the predecessors in title of the Liberals who sit opposite to me. If it is necessary I will say that, happily, all the credit to-day belongs to the gentlemen who sit upon the other side of the House. But after I have said that 1 shall still rejoice for that fact which stands out beyond peradventure, that when the nations gathered together there was a place for the Canadian nation. And I am sure that on both sides of this House we can, after all, appreciate the fact of how little importance it is whether at one time men who called themselves Liberals and at another time men who called themselves Conservatives were doing the work.
In regard to the question of our national status, we might well (take a leaf out of the book of the Mother Country, where they recognize that the relations of the country with the outside world, in other words, its foreign policy, is not a matter for party politics, but is carried on by government after government on well defined consistent lines, each successive administration profiting by the wisdom of its predecessor, and anxious to hand on in its turn some additional principle that may be availed of by its successor. Surely on this common ground of "Canada a Nation,'' we can stand together and rejoice together in the work of all those great Canadians who have helped to build up Canada, to all of whom without discrimination we are so grateful, and of all of whom without discrimination we are so proud.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess.
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Mr. Speaker, the resolution submitted for our approval is in all respects identical with the one that was presented for our consideration at the last session of Parliament, which session was called especially that we might give our assent to the Treaty with Germany. In the course of his remarks the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) made to this side of the House 31	f |	{
what one might call a supplication that we should be unanimous with regard to this resolution. I do not rise for the purpose of offering factious opposition to the resolution; but it appears somewhat strange that Canada should be requested on this occasion to assent to a Treaty between the Allied and Associated Foyers and Bulgaria, and that seemingly with the object of permitting His Majesty the King of England to ratify it. The man in the street, little conversant as he is with the affairs of the Balkan Peninsula, will undoubtedly be somewhat startled when he is made aware of the necessity for this Parliament to give its assent to such a Treaty, and the question will inevitably be asked whether it is true that such a radical and fundamental change in the political or international status, of Canada has taken place. Last year the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden) and the President of the Council (Mr. Rowell), and again this year the President of the Council, in periods pregnant with eloquence, repeatedly assured us of a powerful evolution, almost a revolution, in our political status which has brought Canada to the fore as a full-fledged nation in the councils of the world. No man in Canada is prouder than myself to see my country attain the status to which it is entitled by its economic development, by its almost inexhaustible natural resources in land, forest, fisheries, minerals and water-powers; by its ever-increasing manufacturing industries; by its geographical situation as between two great oceans; by its sturdy, thrifty, vigorous and labour-loving population, and last, but not least, b.y the heroic deeds of Canada's sons on the battlefields of Europe. These efforts of our soldiers were directed towards preventing the world from falling a victim to militaristic domination; but I fail to see in what-extraordinary degree Canada is gaining nationally or inter, nationally. The words "Canada's status," "Canada a nation," have been resounding in our ears from the treasury benches, during last session and also during this session; but since the days when Sir Wilfrid Laurier returned from the Imperial Conferences of 1897, 1902, 1907, 1909, with what I would call complete autonomy in matters commercial, in matters of immigration and in matters naval and military, a sentiment of national pride has pervaded the mind and soul of every man in Canada. That Canada is a nation is no new discovery. Canada was recognized as an autonomous nation many years before the war; but whilst up to the war Canada had inter-



national obligations commensurate -with her national status, to-day the indications are that the equilibrium is destroyed by the predominance of international obligations over the political international advantages.
Let not my words, however, be construed as meaning that I offer any opposition to the creation or establishment of a League of Nations. There is, I think, a unanimous sentiment in this country in favour of the establishment of suoh a League which will doubtless proVe to be an effective instrument for the maintenance of peace in the world. But Canada is not an independent nation; Canada is not a sovereign nation; and one has only to travel a few miles on the European continent or even in Great Britain to become fully aware of that fact. If I desired to prolong my remarks, I could quote many instances when, during my last trip to Europe, I was confronted with situations that made it perfectly plain and clear to me that Canada was not a sovereign nation and was not enjoying the same status as the United Kingdom, although the contrary has been affirmed and reaffirmed time - and again in this House.
Moreover, a suggestion was made this afternoon by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) that we must be at one with the other nations of the Empire; to differ with the other four nations of the Empire would be fraught with the gravest consequences. Here is a Treaty to which we are asked to assent, though our plenipotentiaries were breathing the pure air of Canada when its provisions were discussed, and drafted, and signed. It is true our good friend the High Commissioner for Canada in London has affixed his signature to this Treaty; but who will doubt for one moment that Sir George Perley crossed the Channel only for a few hours; that on a cool, bracing, beautiful morning of last autumn he took an automobile ride to this delightful little town called Neuilly-sur-Seine, that he signed the Treaty, undoubtedly without reading it, and that a few hours afterwards he re-entered the capital of France only to rush across the Channel again to his absorbing duties in London, and the next morning or perhaps the same day the news w'as flashed across the ocean that Canada had signed the Treaty of Peace? And Canada has signed the Treaty. We may take it for granted that at the time this perfunctory act was discharged by Sir George Perley, not one of our ministers, surely not the members of this Parliament and the people of this country knew or had the remotest idea of some of the provisions of this
' TMr. BCland t
Treaty. Would you think, Sir, for instance, that the President of the Council, or my right hon. friend (Sir George Foster), who leads the House, kneiw anything about a certain point 1295 situated about 18 kilometres west of Kuchuk-Derbend, as a part of the boundary between Greece and Serbia? Or anything about the apex of a salient formed by the frontier of the Treaty of Sofia, 1915, about 10 kilometres east southeast of Jisr Mustafa Pasha? It is a matter of history, however, that Sir George Perley has signed this Treaty without a smile.
The contention has been made in this House that Canada has attained a new starus, a position that she did not enjoy and oi which she could not boast before the war. We all recall the pathetic picture which was drawn of the struggle made by the representatives of Canada at the door of the Peace Conference. To use a phrase' that was used in this House once by the late Mr. Israel Tarte, our representatives "fought like blazes" -to gain admittance into the room. I do not want to minimize the honour or the advantage accruing to Canada by participation in the Peace Conference, but I say that no struggle should have been necessary on the part of our representatives to enter the Peace Conference. Canada had supplied 500,000 men, 69,000 of whom had fallen for the cause of the allied countries, and when the representatives of the allied countries got together in conference to settle the terms of peace I submit that no objection whatever should have been offered to the presence of the Canadian representatives.
Of the League of Nations, Mr. Speaker, I do not want to say anything because I do not want to prolong my remarks, except to attempt to correct what I consider is a wrong impression conveyed, not intentionally I am sure, by some hon. ministers regarding the voting power of Canada. In Article 4 of the Covenant it is provided that a nation that is interested in a dispute under consideration and which is not a member of the council may be invited to send a representative to sit in the council. It has been claimed by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) and also by the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell) that sitting in the council in that way, as an invited guest, as it were, Canada would have the power to register a vote. But a perusal of subsequent clauses of the Covenant shows clearly that whenever Canada, or indeed any nation that is a member of the League, is interested in a dispute she is precluded from voting.

That the League of Nations will render immense services to mankind we cannot doubt. We need only recall the effects that the enactment of the Industrial Disputes Act has had in Canada, and if we may compare a big thing with a small thing we may expect that the League of Nations will at least render to the nations of the earth the service that has been rendered to this country by the Industrial Disputes Act.
Now, what is the new status of Canada within the Empire? No one so far has been able to draw from the Government the particulars of the new situation, if there is a new situation. It is true we have been told that Canada is one of five equal nations in the Empire, but when in the course of a debate last year my hon. friend the President of the Privy Council was invited by my hon. friend from Chambly and Ver-cheres (Mr. Archambault) to name the nations that constitute the British Empfre he replied that the British nation was composed of five nations equal in status, namely, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The claim has been made repeatedly that they are all on an absolutely equal footing in matters Imperial, and, I take it, also in matters international. Now let us see whether the claim [DOT] is well founded. In order to ascertain whether the contention is just we must proceed by way of illustration. Surely the Parliament of Canada has no more extensive powers than the Parliament of the United Kingdom. That, I think, will be accepted as gospel by my friends on the other side. Last year we had some very interesting declarations from the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden), whom I am sorry not tp see in this House at the present moment. He made the declaration that if Canada refused to assent to the German Treaty, His Majesty the King would not ratify it. Have I represented faithfully the declaration of the Prime Minister? If my hon. friends do not object, then I shall go on;-this is becoming more and more interesting as we proceed. For, if the British Empire is composed of five equal nations all enjoying an equal share of autonomy and power and discretion, it is only natural to presume that in some instances one of those nations will differ from the others. We might have a case, for instance, where the United Kingdom differed from the four other nations. Now, in order to enable the House to reach a clear comprehension of what is described as ''Canada's new political and 31J
international status," 1 would request the Government to inform the House what course would be adopted by the Sovereign in case the Parliament of the United Kingdom refused, to approve this Treaty with Bulgaria after the four other nations of the Empire had given their assent to it. Would ratification take place? Would His Majesty the King yield to the wishes of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and refuse to ratify? Or would he yield to the will of the parliaments of these four other nations of the Empire and sign the Treaty? Whichever cojirse he took, the consequences would be formidable for the United Kingdom. If the United Kingdom as one of five equal nations of the Empire refused to assent to a treaty accepted by the other four nations, there would be only one course open to the United Kingdom, and that would be to drop out of the British Empire. In other words, if one of the five nations refuses to assent to a treaty, then ipso facto a severance of that nation from the Empire takes place. I submit that this proposition, so preposterous, so impossible, so absurd and ridiculous as it appears, has its confirmation from no less an authority than the Prime Minister himself. During the consideration last year of the German Treaty, the right hon. gentleman, in presenting the resolution to the House, was subjected to a number of questions from hon. gentlemen on this side, and I shall read a passage from Hansard in which he makes a definite statement in reply to the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding). At page 22 of Volume 1, 1919, (Special Session) this question is put to the Prime Minister:
What difference does it make to us, the Empire, or the world, if we never ratify the Treaty at all?
In answer the Prime Minister said:
It makes this difference. Canada would stand out of and apart from the rest of the Empire ratifying the Treaty. It would virtually, I think, commit Canada to such absolutely independent action that she could not be regarded in the future as acting in co-operation with the other nations' of the Empire.
, So that in the event of the United Kingdom refusing to give her assent to a treaty to which the four other nations had assented, the United Kingdom would have to drop out of the British Empire! This, surely, would be a very grave occurrence. Whatever, therefore, may be the Canadian national interest in regard to the provisions of any given treaty, if we dared to disagree we would ipso facto be wiped out of the Britannic Commonwealth-that is,


if the explanation and interpretations given by the members of the Government iare to he relied upon. The Minister of Justice, has sat, I am sure, on very many occasions on a court of revision in the province of Quebec, and I feel satisfied that in filling that oflioe, in the able manner in which he has always performed his duties, some instances have arisen in which he ^differed from the two other judges. Yet he was not thrown out of the court; he remained in the court and the judgment was rendered.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Does my hon. friend not realize the difference between the two things? In the court you have a provision of law which enables the majority to render judgment. In the present instance you have five nations constituting one Empire, and if the assent of that Empire is needed there .is no provision by which the majority or any one of them can overrule any of the constituent nations. There is a manifest distinction between the two cases, I think.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I see the distinction perfectly, but I should like to know how it comes that there is no such provision in this matter. There should be a provision by which, if one of the nations differed, it should not be read out of the British Empire because of that difference; and if this provision is lacking I say that the whole responsibility rests upon the shoulders of ,my hon. friend. Until the Constitutional Conference which is to be held in London has taken place, no man amongst ordinary mortals can definitely state whether Canada has~ advanced or receded in recent times. This state of the proceedings is very nebu-4ous lindeed, It has been affirmed that Canada has undergone an organic change of political status. We have been told that three courses were open to us; ,First, to fall back into the colonial state; second, to develop as a free nation within the Empire; and third, to declare our independence. The President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell) makes the emphatic protestation that he refuses to recede to the colonial state. So do we. The hon, minister rejects with indignation any suggestion of 'the severance of British connection. So do we. The middle course, that is, the development of Canadian autonomy within the Empire, he embraces passionately. So (io we. I will add, however, 'that this has been the policy of the Liberal party since the year 1896; hut there may be a different appreciation of what constitutes progress in the direction of enlarging national status. And I say, with the leader of the Opposition,

that if the development .contemplated is to surrender to an Imperial Cabinet the autonomy we now enjoy in naval and military questions, and in questions concerning (participation in wars and expenditures in connection therewith-and there are signs of this surrender on the horizon-then I say .we are retrogressing and not advancing. I would warn 'the Government, if they will .accept my warning, that in shaping the pew political edifice which is in the vision .of some imperialistic genius of England ,we should not start at the roof, the imperial cabinet. The edifice would undoubtedly be an imperial parliament, which would be founded on the desire of all parliaments within the Empire to be consulted. If those parliaments were consulted, judging by what I hear all over this country, you would not find any response to your call if you wanted to concentrate and centralize in London the administration of this Dominion. I can only repeat what .was so ably said the other day, and at the conclusion of the last session, ,by my hon. friend, the member for Quebec East (Mr. Lapointe). He adequately represented the opinion of the Canadian people'when he requested that this Parliament and this country be consulted before any scheme of Imperial Federation be launched, or indeed before any step is taken to alter the present status of Canada.
As far as I am concerned, I wish Godspeed to the nations of the Balkan peninsula. As to Bulgaria, I hope she may be happy; the Peace Conference has paid a great deal of attention to the welfare of the different races that may "inhabit that country. The Treaty which is submitted to us contains a whole section-section 4-in the political .clauses, devoted to the protection of minorities. This is certainly the section of the Treaty that appeals to me the most. Reading this section, and the political clauses of the Treaty generally, we are apt to wonder how in the world it is possible that we Canadians should have entered a conflict raging some three thousand miles away from us for the vindication of certain principles, when the very principles for which we have struggled, fought and vanquished, for which we have lost 60,000 of the flower and youth of this country, may not be upheld in certain important sections of Canada itself. The reflection comes to the mind of the casual observer that the minorities of the vanquished nations have profited more than the minorities of the victorious nations. For, if we turn to the Treaty, and in particular

to the clauses I have referred to, we find that it contains an enunciation of the principles which are deeply rooted in and in. separable from the heart and soul of every free man. I refer to the privileges guaranteed to linguistic and religious minorities. Nothing is more closely related to the love of God than religious creed, and nothing is more intimately associated with maternal love than the language learned at the knee of the dear parent. That these sacred and fundamental principles should have^-a place in the Treaty of Peace is an indication to me, Mr. Speaker, that they must have been ignored or disregarded and that the necessity of their public and solemn recognition is imperative.
In this respect the Treaty of Peace appeals to me more than in any other respect. It is a proclamation to the world at large that these principles should be upheld by all countries, and that this is undoubtedly the wish of the five Great Powers. Let me quote a few sentences by way of illustration. When you come , to page 24 of the Treaty you are right in the heart of the clauses that deal with the protection of minorities. Here is article 53. I shall read a paragraph:
All Bulgarian nationals shall he equal before the law and shall enjoy the same civil and political rights without distinction as to race, language or religion.
Let us go one step further-Article 54:
Bulgarian nationals who belong to racial, religious or linguistic minorities shall enjoy the same treatment and security in law and in fact as the other Bulgarian nationals.
Article 55:
Bulgaria will provide in the public educational system in towns and districts in which a considerable proportion of Bulgarian nationals of other than Bulgarian speech are resident, adequate facilities

Adequate facilities.

for ensuring that in the primary schools
the instruction shall be given to the children of such Bulgarian nationals through the medium of their own language.
And the last paragraph:
In towns and districts where there is a considerable proportion of Bulgarian nationals belonging to racial, religious or linguistic minorities, these minorities shall be assured an equitable share in the enjoyment and application of sums which may be provided out of public funds under the State, municipal or other budgets, for educational, religious or charitable purposes.
The nine articles of section 4 are in themselves a code of tolerance.
Resuming my seat, let me say that we concur in the resolution which is submitted
to us. We have only to reaffirm the position taken last year as to the supremacy and sovereignfy of the Canadian Parliament in the matter of participating in war as involved in Article 10. We are in accord with the Treaty because it embodies those principles of tolerance and justice which should be spread throughout the length and breadth of this country, for they constitute the foundation of a united Canada.
Right Hon. Sir GEORGE E. FOSTER (Acting Prime Minister): Mr. Speaker, I had no idea of speaking on this phase of the discussion which has been carried on in reference to the approval of the Bulgarian Treaty, and I disclaim any idea of making a speech at the present timei I would not have been on my feet had it not been for one remark made by the hon. leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), and reiterated by my hon. friend who has just taken his seat (Mr. Beland). I have been, if the House will allow me to say so, pleased with the spirit of the discussion which has taken place upon this Treaty.
In fact I might go a little further and say that I have been pleased with the tone of discussions in this House since the opening of the present session of Parliament; and I indulge the hope, as I most certainly cherish the desire, that we who begin our parliamentary work of this session in these new, artistic and ample surroundings, will express the spirit of this great edifice in its harmony of purpose, in its spiritualization of stone and wood into ideas and sentiments, and that it will have a restraining influence on all of us to be more kindly in our treatment of each other as partisans taking different angles of view, and will temper somewhat, and I hope greatly, what is apt in the best of us to degenerate sometimes into a mischievous, if not a malicious, baiting and hurting of one another.
For instance there is my hon. friend from Three Rivers (Mr. Bureau). I meet him in the corridor, and I sit with him in the club once in a while. We converse together, and he thinks I am a very fair type of humanity. And, without any stretch of imagination or any great compulsion put upon me, I am making up my mind that, taken altogether, he is a pretty good sort of a fellow. We find that our ideas run pretty nearly parallel to each other, and as we sit and talk he would not try to make me feel that he thought I was a thief, a dishonest man, corrupt, over-extravagant, and everything of that kind. Now, when we leave our social converse, where we meet man to man, and separate oqrselves

on two sides of the House, the spirit of the aggregate gets into us, the spirit of the party, and when we get on our feet we look at each other through somewhat different glasses from those through which we see one another socially. But we are just as good men sitting opposite each other here as we were sitting side by side socially outside; and in the heart of each of us, no matter what he may be impelled to say in the heat and strife of party polities, we think the same of each other individually here as we did outside. Out of the Chamber we go back again to our social converse and we relapse into about the same relative attitude one to another.


Mr. LAPOINTE:: Say that in French.


George Green Foster: Well, what I
hope is that as we grow older and more experienced we will try and keep that softened and human spirit even in our strongest and bitterest debates and so make them less strong in that sense and less bitter. How often I think of things that I have said a long time ago, when I was more vigorous than I 4am now, and wish maybe that I had not said quite all I did say; and sometimes I feel that the same thought has come to others who have said things about me. Well, we grow wiser as we grow older, but we cannot try any too much along the line of keeping with us that human kindliness even in our party debates and our partisan discussions.
Now that is not in the way of a lecture; it is just in the way of a word by a man who has been a long time in politics, party and otherwise and who, looking over the past and the present and a little towards the future, feels that we might have done more if we had been less partisan and had thiown all the best of us into the treasury of the common good for the benefit of the country.
A great deal is said about our national status. I am not sure but that we have talked nearly enough about it for a while. It seems to me as if now we had pretty well " sturdied " ourselves, if there is such a word. We know where we are and there is not any difference between us as it seems. Suppose we take it for granted that we have an improved status-and let it go at that for a little while.
Having come to a point of virtual agreement, that is a good point for us to start from. And, having a common opinion with reference to what we are and just how great and how strong we are, let us put that greatness and strength into the push

forward for the development and betterment of our common country. We all know this is necessary. We have different points of view and these different points- of view will grade our expressions, grade our feelings ; but at heart we love our country equally, and we aie equally anxious that our country shall get the best that is in us for its betterment and development.
I have found that some of the things that I have got most praise for-and I have never got a great deal of praise for anything I have done, from hon. gentlemen opposite anyway-were things that fell into my lap, things that I could not help but be for when they came to fruition. But the fruit was not my fruit; it was the development of years and years before, which, under proper cultivation long continued, proper sunlight, and proper atmosphere, just at that particular time came to the period of its fruition, and the man who happened to be at the head of affairs, who happened to have taken that line and who therefore foresaw that development-and which had come out as a sort of fulfilment of the prophesy of his own-got the credit of it when the most part of that credit did not belong to him at all. Happily for him fruition came in his time. So, when we talk about Laurier founding a nation, or if we talk of others having founded and made the status of a nation within a certain time, let us be modest about it; for this nationhood that is given to us is the growth of centuries and has had its gradual evolution. We never would have had the nation and the status we have to-day if we had not first had Confederation. That was the forming point, the foundation; our after-greatness aggregated and developed upon that foundation. We never would have had Confederation if we had not had the earnest, honest, straightforward laborious struggle and work of the explorers, the voyageurs, the colonizers and the developers of earlier days.
Confederation came as a fruit of the effort and development that preceded it, and in that work all had a share as in Confederation all had a share. And so what has developed since Confederation has been an evolution from within outward-and happy are we on each side of the House that we have been connected with that evolution and have worked in conformity with its spirit, and consequently, aided by it, have also aided in the result by our own efforts. I say this as, for myself, I have often found it a good thing to think that we all owe so much to the spirit that is about

us, which develops without our efforts, with which we are consonant and with which we sympathize, and with which, to a certain extent, we work, but without which we ourselves would have been powerless to bring about the results.
Now, I had no thought of speaking' in this line at all, but I want to say a word or two about a remark made by my hon. friend who has just taken his seat. He reiterated what we stood for on this side, and he reaffirmed his belief in those things. He agrees with us; we all agree with hijn with reference to that. But the leader of the Opposition made a remark which I would rather not have heard made, although he may think it proper to make it,- and maybe it is; I am not criticising it harshly. He said, " I fear,"-and when he said what he feared I wished in my heart that he had sat down before he voiced his fear, because he rather spoiled the effect of his speech. He said: I agree with what has been done in the matter of our status, its evolution, its strengthening, its gradual extension, its present position; but I fear Imperial centralization. If my hon. friends on the other side have-I will not call it a simulated fear-if they have an honest fear in that respect, it is their duty to voice it and to guard against that fear being realized. But what strikes me is that their fear is groundless in so far as Canada is concerned. 'Canada is the mistress of her own fortunes. It is not what an isolated man in England may have as a vision of some form of centralization that is going to affect Canada that ought to give us cause for alarm. We should have that sturdy reliance upon our own set purpose and our strength to carry it out, to treat such a thing as an idle fear, because it can have' no place in Canada itself. As I said before, we are the masters of our own fortunes.
What are the grounds for that fear? I have been searching for them after having heard them reiterated now and again in the country and sometimes in this House. I have failed to see them. If I did see them anywhere, I was utterly unable to see them in Canada itself. Therefore I am unmoved by them. Again let me say, we are masters of our own fortunes, and I do not know any one in this country who is in for a game of Imperial centralization which will sap to the slightest degree the autonomy and the rights and privileges that Canada to-day exercises, and means to exercise.
If there are no well-founded grounds for that fear, are we doing much of a service to our country and to the Empire to raise
it into prominence, to give it, as far as we can, a body, and a threatening body, and send it out to our people raising prejudices and suspicions with reference to our relations with the Mother Country and with the other parts of the Empire? I do not think that is the best service for us to perform. But every man must be guided by his own light, and if any one thinks that there is enough in it to justify him in arousing the country against that fear-which I think is imaginary-then his responsibility is with himself,


Ernest Lapointe: There is no harm done.


Sir GEOEGE FOSTEE:: -and I would not be unduly harsh in criticising what he says along that line. But for myself, I do not think it is needed, and if it is not needed I do not think it wise to throw that in among the many contentious things that we already have to cope with. Surely we have enough of realities to fight without putting up these eventualities or figments, of the imagination.
I think I have had pretty nearly as wide an acquaintance with the public men of Great Britain as most hon. members here. My hon. and valued friend (Mr. Fielding) who sits opposite to me may have had a more extensive acquaintance, but I have had a fairly large acquaintance with public men in Great Britain of all political shades of opinion, and for the last twenty to twenty-five yeftrs I have had the privilege of being side by side with them in a great -many different capacities and of learning their hopes, their desires, their plans with reference to the development of the British Empire. I must say, as a result of my experience, that it is not possible for me to put my hand upon any organized effort amongst the public men of Great Britain looking in the least degree towards a centralization of empire which would harm to the slightest hair's weight the automony and freedom and privileges that the overseas dominions to-day enjoy,-and which they enjoy with the good-will and perfect unanimity of the people of Great Britain.
I am not going to say that there are not cranks and extremists and faddists in Great Britain, just the same as there are in Canada. But here is where we are apt to make a mistake, in that we take the voice of some one who gets the ear of the newspapers or of the public and makes his voice widely heard-we are apt to take that as being an indication of the sentiments of the nation to which he belongs. We must be discriminating in that respect. We can take that lesson to ourselves right here in

Canada; my hon. friends can take it to themselves; my hon. friend who just sat down can take it to himself. You can take it on the language question, on the school question-you can take it on any question about which there are differences of opinion in this country. We do not get rid of the differences by saying nothing about them; at the same time, we do not get rid of them by saying too much about them, or if our statements are ill-advised and rash and reckless. But the trouble is that some extreme man in one section of the country makes a statement which is galling, rasping, unjust,-insulting if you like; and immediately, under present conditions, this is distributed to every part of the country, and it reaches that section where it hurts, where it arouses harsh feeling, and the tendency is to translate that statement as the voice of the province or of the section of the country from which its author hails. That is the chief trouble. If we could put all that class of utterance under our feet for a single decade, the unity and good feeling in this country of ours would be advanced one hundred per cent. But you *cannot put it under foot. In a democratic country, how are you going to stop a man's mouth? How are you going to stop a newspaper's ink and printing press work? So long as you have those ideas and men who hold them, you will have those ideas floating about, and the injury, and the insult, and the slur will go from one and be returned by the other. If we cannot stop those individual utterances of extreme people, then, as sensible men, and not as children, we must ignore them, and not, like children, feel that we have been insulted by a whole people when one man says of us a thing that is unjust and harsh.. We must be careful not to translate those sayings on the one side or the other into a general expression of the people. to whom they are directed or from whom they are directed. That is the point which occurs to me. After all, I am of the opinion that there is a substantial, widespread, deep and profound unity in this country from the Atlantic to the Pacific.


Ernest Lapointe: Except at election times.


George Green Foster: At election times -there is' where we get foolish, very often get very foolish; and if we see on the outside edge of the crowd half a dozen people whom we think we can influence by a sling, or a jeer, or a slur, or a prejudice stirred up, it is human nature not to let the opportunity pass. The arrow goes; but that is an argument against the man who sends the 
arrow rather than otherwise. If we would just keep those poisoned-tipped arrows in ,our quiver-no, because we are human and might give way to temptation-


Andrew Ross McMaster: Destroy them.


George Green Foster: -if we would put them where they could not be used, vye (would have better politics, better social *union and better sectional union in this country. I am digressing somewhat from my point as to this Imperial centralization, and I go back to it again, and I give it as my opinion, for what that may be worth, that neither in Canada, nor in the British Empire, nor in the outlying Dominions, is there anything to be feared from undue *centralization, because that can never be made a fact in this British Empire. We have proceeded from the first on the line of conference, better knowledge of each other, co-operation; and the result has been splendid when you measure it up over a course of twenty-five years. I can go back thirty or thirty-five years, and I was, from my youth up, an Imperialist in that I wanted the British dominions and races and countries to work together, feel together, have the same heart, the same throbbing pulses, and the same hopes, ambitions and ideals, and to work out, on the plane of their love of justice and of freedom and their constitutional power of organization, one of the best machineries for the development and civilization of the world. Always I have had that in view. I have travelled in all those overseas dominions and I have met their men, and I have yet to find, in Australia, or South Africa, or New Zealand, or India, men who are working for an Imperial centralization. Everywhere they feel as we feel here; but there is one thing that I stand for-and I believe my hon. friends on the other side stand for it also-and that is this, that this British Empire has within its borders resources, mentality, morale, spirit of enterprise, power of organization, and ideals which, if they are combined in co-operative effort, will build up this great Empire as a unity and thereby make a force amongst the internationals of the world-a force for freedom, peace, justice, and true democracy. There is the line along which, I think, we ought to abate no effort, to leave nothing undone by conference, by co-operation. Go fifty years back and see how we have advanced by conference, by co-operation. Look forward fifty years, and if we proceed on the same lines wisely, our liberties will be broadened rather than curtailed, our politicians will

have visions wider than our politicians have to-day. Our internal development, the spirit of our people, the cultivation of that which is honest and right and the putting up before us and the world of the ideals for which our Empire has stood from the first, will be a great guiding point, a star by which others will steer in their courses across the troubled seas of world development. Whilst we grow stronger ourselves, that strength will infuse itself into the world around us and be an uplifter and a developer for all other countries as well as our own. A strong nation is for the good of the world as a whole. A strong nation founded on the principles of this nation of ours is an untold good and blessing to the world. Do not let us be carried away by these imaginery ideas of somebody wanting to chuck us all into one Imperial group and take away all our liberties. That is absurd, nobody is thinking about it who has power to carry it into operation. Anyway, we are strong enough to let anybody who wants to think that way, think that way. As I said before,-we have our fortunes in our own hands.


Joseph Archambault: Mr. Speaker, I must first congratulate the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster) on the splendid utterances he has just made and his magnificent plea in favour of unity and harmony in Canada. Let us hope that his remarks will bear fruit and that they will be printed as a heading in all the literature that will be distributed by his party at the next general election.


George Green Foster: Might I make a challenge, a defi, to my hon. friend? If we will print that at the head of our literature, will my hon. friend and his party print it at the head of all theirs?


Jacques Bureau: Provided the body conforms with the heading.


Ernest Lapointe: Sure, it has always been there.


Joseph Archambault: It has always been the practice of the Liberal party to print such statements at the head of our literature. It would be very easy for me to bring before the House some pieces of literature that were distributed by hon. gentlemen opposite at the last election which had none of the earmarks of what my right hon. friend has spoken of tonight.
We are asked by this resolution to ratify the Treaty of Peace with Bulgaria, just as
we have already ratified the Treaties of Peace with Germany, Austria-Hungary, Po-_ land and other countries. Personally I do not believe it is necessary for us to ratify this Treaty at all. If England ratifies and the King signs this Treaty it makes no difference whether we ratify' and sign it or not. The war with Bulgaria will not start over again. I feel, however, that- it is not necessary for us to refuse to accede to the uncouth request of the Government, and I rose to-night not for the purpose of discussing the resolution at large, but to emphasize a point made by my hon. friend from Beauce (Mr. Beland). I simply wish to draw the attention of the House to a few clauses which in my opinion are of unusual interest, and from which I think some hon. members can draw a very useful lesson. If I understand aright the meaning of this resolution, -by approving this Treaty Canada approves of all the principles embodied in it, and I should like to read to the House Section IV of the Treaty. It is entitled Protection of Minorities, and reads as follows:
Article 49.-Bulgaria undertakes that the stipulations contained in this Section shall be recognized as fundamental laws, and that no law, regulation or official action shall conflict or interfere with these stipulations, nor shall any law, regulation or official action prevail over them.
Article 50.-Bulgaria undertakes to assure full and complete protection of life and liberty to all inhabitants of Bulgaria without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race or religion.
All inhabitants of Bulgaria shall be entitled to the free exercise, whether public or private of any creed, religion or belief, whose practices are not inconsistent with public order or public morals.
Article 53.-All Bulgarian nationals shall be equal before .the law and shall enjoy the same civil and political rights without distinction as to race, language or religion.
Difference of religion, creed or confession shall not prejudice any Bulgarian national in matters relating to the enjoyment of civil or political rights, as for instance admission to public enjoyments, functions and honours, or the exercise of professions and industries.
Article 54.-Bulgarian nationals who belong to racial, religious or linguistic minorities shall enjoy the same treatment and security in law and in fact as the other Bulgarian nationals. In particular they shall have an equal right to establish, manage and control at their own expense charitable, religious and social institutions, schools and other educational establishments, with the right to use their own language and to exercise their religion freely therein.
Article 55.-Bulgaria will provide in the public educational system in towns and districts in which a considerable proportion of Bulgarian nationals of other than Bulgarian speech are resident adequate facilities for ensuring that in the primary schools the instruction shall be given to the children of such Bulgarian nation-

attain, and I think it will lead to a great deal less trouble in the long run for the British Empire to be represented there as a unit than for us to be divided into five different countries speaking through five different classes of representatives from each of these divisions. If we are a nation, as has been boasted, and if we have " cut the painter " entirely-although I do not believe we have-we are j,ust in the position of the young man who is starting out in life and who, when he gets to be twenty-one years of age walks up to his father and says: " Dad, I have been with you for twenty-one years, and now I propose to be a man on my own account; I propose to go out and see the world; I propose to row my own boat and to paddle my own canoe through the world; "so, good-bye, Dad, old chap." Perhaps I give him my blessing and I start this young man out in this way. The young man goes out into the world and gets into trouble;-he gets into debt; he gets into difficulty This young man who is willing to be upon his own resources as long as the sun shines, but he expects good old Dad to pull him out when he gets into trouble and when he has contracted debts that he is unable to pay. That is practically the position we are ready to assume in Canada. We say that we are a nation, that we are a nation among the nations of the world, that of the forty-two nations that signed the Treaty, we are just as good as any. Are we prepared to pay the shot the same as they are? When we asked for seven thousand or eight thousand troops for all Canada, " Militarism " is shouted at us; when we ask for a few small boats to keep our coasts, it is said that we aspire to lbe a great naval power; when we ask for an air force it is said that we are going to squander money on war armaments. We will hear of that, and a great deal more than we have ever done before, if we are going to uphold our position that we assume in this League of Nations. It is going to be an immense responsibility, and I ask hon. gentlemen on both sides of the House to look it squarely in the face. I have appealed, on two different occasions and not merely today, in the discussion of this Treaty, and I again appeal to the leaders on this and the other side of the House to tell us what our responsibilities are, and what we are going to do when trouble comes. It is all very well to say that the sun is shining now and that it is always going, to shine. I believe it is the part of good policy to look ahead. I do not expect that there will always be sunshine, that there will always

be peace in the world or that we will have just the conditions that we would like to have. If that is the case, Mr. Speaker, we ought to look the whole situation over and we ought to have'a statement from one of the leaders of the House as to what our position will be when the call comes. On what basis is it going to be settled? Is it on the basis of population, or is it on thq basis of the area to be defended? On what basis is Canada, one of the five sister nations of the British Empire, to pay her share, or fight her share, with the rest of the world? That is what we will have to do. The United States Senate has balked for eighteen months over it, although we seem to be ready to take it down at one gulp and make no inquiry whatever as to what our responsibilities are in regard to it. I trust before the debate closes that we will have an authoritative statement from some quarter telling us how these troops are going to be raised, how the levy is to be made, how it is going to be paid for, and who settles the responsibility for it.
Heretofore when the British Empire has been at war we have been at liberty practically to do what we wished to help the Mother Country and in most of her wars we have wished to do nothing. In the last war, I am glad to say, Canada has taken her full share and perhaps more than her full share amongst the nations but is she prepared to take part in quarrels that she thinks do not concern her very much because some of these quarrels may be in the Balkan states, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Palestine and those countries and we may not feel like laying down the tools of peace and devoting ourselves again to armaments. If we are not prepared to do that, somebody has to do our .share for us and if somebody does our share for us-we have to pay for the share that is being done. That is the way I see it, that is the way it reads in Article 10, and the American people not only read it in the same way but they are not prepared to sacrifice the constitution of the United States in this regard to the extent of handing over to the League of Nations the right to say what they shall do, when they shall do it and how they shall do it. That is what we are doing. We are practically, when signing this Treaty, signing away our independence, not in relation to Britain but signing away our independence to the extent that we became subservient to the directions of the League of Nations. The League of Nations c'an say to Canada with a population of 8,000,000: You provide 100,000 men, ten ships and fifty or

a hundred units of the air force. That may be the levy and it may not be a very large war at that. What provision is there for finding a force of that kind? That is a part of the Treaty, that is a responsibility that may come to us sooner or later, and if it comes how are we to meet it? I think that instead of glorifying ourselves as being a nation among the nations of the world and pointing to the fact that we. have obtained a status that we had never thought of before, we should inquire, if we are going to be a man of the world, how much it will cost; are we able-.to carry the load; are we prepared to sustain the burden; are we prepared as citizens of Canada to provide the army, the navy and the air force to enable us to take our place amongst the nations of the world whenever they are called for? As I understand it that will be the final necessity of the case when we have entered into this League of Nations because it will apply with binding force to all those who sign the Covenant and in my judgment we will have to pay the piper later. If we do not recognize that now, when the assessment is made by the Council of the League of Nations, which is competent to do it, we will have to do what they ask us to do whether we like it or not, or else we will have to ignominiously drop out. altogether. If I interpret the Treaty right, if any member fails to carry out the obligation placed upon it by the Council of the League of Nations, it automatically ceases t6 be a member of the League. If that is is so it will be up to Canada, when the call comes, to contribute in the way I have suggested and in a measure commensurate with her population, resources and the area that we have and which must be defended.
.Hlon, W. S. FIELDING (Shelburne and Queen's):	Mr. Speaker, before proceeding
to make a few -remarks on the important question which engages our attention, I cannot deny myself the privilege of offering to my right hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George E. Foster) my congratulations upon the address which he delivered and with which, with very little exception, we on this side of the House entirely agree. I am sure that the appeal he made to the members on both sides of the "House as to the spirit in which we should discuss not only this but all questions will be responded to all round. I listened to his address with great pleasure and I am unwilling to let it pass without this remark from myself.
I am exceedingly glad to find my hon. friend from Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) drawing attention to the responsibilities of Canada under these treaties and under the League of Nations. He is right when he says that too little attention has been paid to that important question. I think-in fact I know-that many hon. members on both sides have become enamoured of this notion of the higher status that Canada is said to have attained. They are fascinated with the idea of having a place in the League of Nations. We are getting to be a jigger boy than we formerly were and there is a disposition to see something to congratulate somebody upon. I think that when the sober-minded hard-headed people of Canada come to fully understand this question-when they understand the cost of this whole arrangement and the obligations that are being taken upon us-they will have a different impression, and I desire that the people shall understand what this thing is costing us at present. Some of these days we shall have the pleasure, I suppose, of getting at the inside history of this claim of Canada to a separate position. The thing seems to me to be so profoundly foolish that I am unwilling to place the responsibility entirely upon the Canadian Government. I have a notion that this thing originated in the mind of some fussy person from some other section of the Empire, and that the worst than can be said of the Canadian Government is that they were not strong-minded enough to resist the movement. I believe that some of the sober-minded Ministers of the Crown- clear-headed, hard-headed men; they are not all dreamers, they are not all faddists- I cannot help believing that their loyalty to colleagues and courtesy to their party surroundings obliged them to be silent on the question. I am' satisfied, as I know these men, that they must entertain a mute protest against this foolish attempt for Canada to mix itself up in the foreign affairs of the world. I think that Canada's part in this matter has been largely a farce,- I hope it is not unkind to say that. A farce, of course, is an amusing thing. I think it was farcical last year when we undertook to represent to the people of Canada that it was necessary that Canada, through its Parliament, should approve of the German Treaty. No constitutional authority of repute would claim that it was necessary that Canada through its Parliament should approve of that Treaty. The Prime Minister himself did not say that. When the question was put squarely to him the most

he could say was: Oh well, if you do not approve of it the Government will have to resign. But it is clear, I think, to the mind of any constitutional authority in Canada that if we had never passed any motion regarding the German Treaty .that Treaty would have gone into operation just the same. And if it was a farce to deal with the German Treaty that way last year it is an even greater farce to deal in the same way with this Bulgarian Treaty. My hon. friend (Mr. Beland) gave us a picture of our respected friend, Sir George Perley, rushing down to the coast, crossing the channel, going down to the charming little French village, and hurrying in and affixing his signature to a document which he probably never read. I do not believe there are half a dozen members in this House who have read this Treaty. I do not believe the members of the Government have all read it. The Minister of Justice to-day said he had read it, and I am bound to believe him. He asked me if I had read the Treaty and I was frank enough to say no. I tried to read it, but it is a document of one hundred or more pages. I read the most of it, but I honestly confess I was unable to complete my reading. Still I am convinced that I read five times as much as most hon. gentlemen. Why, the thing is a joke. It is a joke as described by my hon. friend (Mr. Beland) if Sir George Perley went and signed the Treaty in the way described. It would be more of a joke if we could imagine Sir George Perley solemnly sitting down in Council, in judgment, on the condition of affairs to be arranged between Bulgaria and the Balkan States and the' civilized world. We cannot imagine a more ludicrous thing than to suppose for a single moment, that Sir George Perley has the qualifications-and I say this without any disrespect for that gentleman; that he has the knowledge and qualifications-to sit down and consider the matter and deliver a judgment in the form of this Blue Book. The whole thing, Mr. Speaker, is ridiculous. And it is a costly bit of folly for the people of Canada. Just what it cost for our ministers to go to Paris I do not know, nor am I interested in inquiring. Whatever we may say regarding the status of Canada we will all agree that when our Ministers of the Grown go abroad they have a status to maintain and we. would expect them to do it with dignity; and if the cost in [DOT] that respect was a large and generous one I at least will find no fault with them. The country will not begrudge any expense of that kind when the money 
is expended for the purpose of the public business of Canada. Of course, the misfortune is in that case, whatever the expenditure was, it was to no purpose, because there was no public business of Canada before the Conference. Now information was laid before this House, official information I believe, to show that the Canadian ministers over there had exceedingly little to do and that, practically speaking, our participation in that Treaty was very largely a sham. That is perhaps too harsh a word, but at all events they did little or' nothing, not because they were not able to do things, but because there was nothing for them to do. You can take the whole Treaty, and take this Treaty, and read them from cover to cover, and you will find nothing in them from beginning to end that has a direct bearing upon the affairs of the people of Canada. Therefore I say there was no need of their dealing with the matter in that way.
I again come to the question of the expense. It was stated the other day that we have paid $65,000 already for our share of the expenses of the League of Nations for the first year. I do not know by what authority or out of what appropriation that money was paid. That of course we will ascertain in due course. But there was another item that we paid in connection with this matter. Not only did the Government bring forward this pretence- that it was necessary for Canada to approve of the Treaty through her. Parliament, bht they went further and said that it was so necessary and so urgent that they had to have a special session of Parliament in Canada for that purpose. Now, I have already declared, and I am not sure but that I am the only member who did so, that it was wanton waste of the public money to call that special session of Parliament, and I do not hesitate to repeat the statement to-night. If you would say "That is a partisan opinion," if you would say "that is a statement that only some partisan Grit would make," I am going to * give you the opinion of a supporter of the Government which my Conservative friends will freely accept as having some weight. At the time that special session of Parliament was proposed the Montreal Gazette, a most influential journal of the Conservative party, had an article on the subject in which it said:
An autumn session of Parliament would be nothing short of profligacy.
That is a very harsh term, but it is not my word, it is the word of the Conservative Montreal Gazette.
MARCH 16, 192t
No one reason worthy a moment's consideration has been given why a session should be held, while there are a score of reasons on the other side. A million and a half dollars is a tidy sum of money even in these days when men tialk familiarly of a hundred millions and do not pale when a billion is mentioned. A session of Parliament lasting only thirty days will cost the country a million and a half, and for this considerable price what can be gained? The ratification of the Peace Treaty three months earlier than in normal course! One might almost infer that an awe-struck world stands in fear and trembling lest the Canadian Parliament reject the Covenant, and so precipitate another war. It is nonsense to pretend that it makes a shadow of difference whether the Parliament of Canada, or tlje Parliament of any other country, for that matter, approves the Treaty in October or in January.
That is the opinion of the Montreal Gazette. I might put along side it the opinion of a journal that the Minister of Finance will have great confidence in, for I remember, though I have not the paper at hand, that it quoted the Gazette with approval, and that is the Conservative Kingston Standard. So that when I charge upon the Government this waste of the public .money amounting to probably a million dollars at least-I asked a question about it the other day but we have not yet the official information, but I fear the cost will be a million dollars-when I charge upon the Government this wanton waste of a million dollars in order to carry out its claim about the necessity of Parliament having to approve of the Treaty, I am simply saying that which sober-minded Conservative people, as represented by the Montreal Gazette and the Kingston Standard, have said. So I think if the people' of Canada come ito understand the expense that this thing has cost them already-and Heaven knows how much it is going to cost them in the future-this glamour about CUnada having a seat at the Peace Conference, will, in all probability, take on another colour.
Now, I must not be misunderstood. If any man says that I am willing to have the affairs of Canada disposed of by people who do not represent Canada he will state that for which there is no foundation. I insist that whenever Canada has a particular business requiring attention that business shall be attended to by the representatives of the Canadian people. That I would make quite clear. But if occasionally there are matters pending of only remote interest to Canada-the kind of interest that a man has out in the South sea islands if he is a Britisher; that a negro has in the West Indies; in fact, the interest which a Britisher has everywhere in the. wide world-if there is only that kind of interest, then I say there is no particular reason why Canada should insist upon representation, because it ought to be sufficient for us that the interests of Canada will be safe in the hands of those who represent the British Empire.
So I do claim, Mr. Speaker, that this pretence that it is necessary that Canada, for the protection of her interests, should have representation at the Peace Conference is an entire delusion. There is no need of any hesitation on our part iff claiming our right to deal with the affairs of Canada in the way I have described; there is no new status or power required for that purpose. There was a time many years ago when the affairs of the Dominions, or the colonies as they were then called, were disposed of by the British Government and the British Parliament without any reference to us. I suppose those would be what we call "the old colonial days." Unless it be between those times and the present, I do not know where you are going to draw the line as to what are referred to as "the old colonial days."
But those days are a thing of the remote past. For the last forty years at least there has been a recognition on the part of the British Government that wherever the interests of Canada were concerned, Canada must be either directly represented or she must be protected by a reservation in the Treaty that it is not to apply to her until it has received the approval of her Parliament. Our interests in that respect have been fully protected in the past, and it did not need any Conference at Paris or any League of Nations to give us that protection.
Although I may be peculiar in this respect-and I am careful to say that I speak for myself only-1 regret to say that I regard the step taken by the Dominions generally in claiming seats at the Paris Conference as a grave mistake. I say it is a mistake to separate Canada from the rest of the Empire in international affairs, and it is a mistake which will work harm in the future. Within the British Empire we should stand for our rights, we should be willing, as my hon. friend from Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) said to-day, at any conference with the ' Imperial authorities to see that wherever it is necessary the interests of Canada are protected. But when you come to deal with foreign affairs I claim that we should deal with them as a unit, as an Empire. And when you say,
4!}6

"We will treat the United Kingdom as one part, Canada as another part, and Australia as another part," you are making the beginning of a policy of separation, the end of which may not be what you desire. I am firmly persuaded that this assertion of a separate interest on the part of Canada and the other Dominions is the beginning of the evolution of separation, and for that reason, amongst others, I regret we have to deal with it.
I want to say a word with regard to what my hon. friend the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell) stated concerning the position of Canada in the League of Nations. The League is composed of a Council and an Assembly. As a matter of fact the Council is the really important body; the Assembly is a larger body which meets only occasionally, the real work being done by the Council. On the Council Canada has no representative, and I do not hesitate to say that she cannot have a representation. It is true there is nothing in the League constitution which says she will not have a representation, and the Prime Minister, for some strange reason, took the trouble to obtain from Mr. Clemenceau, from Mr. Lloyd George and from Mr. Wilson a declaration that the Dominions were not precluded from having a seat on the Council. .
But that does not prove anything. The Council is composed of the representatives of five Great Powers: Great Britain, France, Italy, the United States, and Japan. Each of these Great Powers is a member of the Council by right, and then four others are to be chosen by the Assembly. Now, when you consider that there will be perhaps fifty or more nations having seats in the Assembly, many of them seeking to get to the Council, is there any reasonable probability that, Great Britain already having one member, these other nations will give the British Empire a second member in the shape of a seat for Canada.


Henri Sévérin Béland: None whatever.


William Stevens Fielding: It is unreasonable, it is preposterous. We will have no seat on the Council, and it is the Council that is important.	-
That brings us to the question which has so much disturbed my hon. friend the President of the Privy Council, the Lenroot reservation. According to my hon. friend there is deep indignation throughout this country and a firm determination that we are not going. to let Uncle Sam interfere with our rights and privileges in this mat-
]Mr. Fielding. [
ter. A great American-I would not say a very great one-gave to his countrymen what he told them was a good motto: Stand by your country, right or wrong. Well, the ethics of that motto I will not discuss, and yet it is practically what we all do. We all stand by our country. When my hon. friend makes a speech in which he tells us the American Senate is trying to interfere with something that belongs to us, we all stand up and say: They shall not do it. But we do not stop to consider what that something is. Now, as a matter of fact there is no such indignation and no such public opinion as my hon. friend says concerning the Lenroot reservation. If my hon. friend would go out into the public streets of any town and ask the first dozen men he met what they thought of the Lenroot reservation, five or sir! would tell him they never heard of it, one or two would inform him that they had seen it in the headlines of the newspapers, and he would be very lucky indeed if he found one man who knew what it meant; and it is pretty certain that he would not find one of them at all concerned about the reservation. My hon. friend is able to provoke a little public opinion by telling the world that the Americans are trying to do something to interfere with us. Well, we are all going to stand by our country against the United States. If we put forward a claim that is not very reasonable, nevertheless we are not going to let Uncle Sam say that we shall not do it. I suppose in that way my hon. friend can find some public opinion in support of his contention. But the truth is there is no such indignation. No one in Canada cares much for the Lenroot reservation; it is not a matter that disturbs anybody, whatever my hon. friend may think about it. However, he made a speech of the same kind in Montreal not many days ago, and immediately after it was reviewed in the Montreal Gazette of the 17th February. I am going to quote a passage of that review:
The olaim made upon the part of Canada is that the record of the Dominion as a belligerent raises this country to equal status with all those other nations. As a matter of constitutional fact, no such development occurred, and the wisdom of the attempt which has been made to first establish by assertion, and then defend, a position which in point of fact does not exist, is open to question. Canada is not now in any different position constitutionally than before the war. Canadian autonomy is neither more nor less complete than then.
If the status which is being- ascribed to the Dominion by some of its representatives had really been attained the Canadian Government would not now be protesting to the Government of Great Britain, as is the case, but would be acting independently. The fact that Canadian

delegates were successful in becoming signatories to the Peace Treaty and obtaining for Canada the right, now disputed, of voting in the League Assembly does not alter the position of Canada as a Dominion under the British Sovereign. Canada cannot be dependent one day and independent another.
Then the article concludes-and this brings on the question of how much public opinion there is on this question:
Moreover, the Canadian people are not worrying one way or the other in regard to their right of representation in the League of Nations. They have shown a strictly detached and dispassionate interest in the matter and have shown no disposition to be what is called " het up "

That is the Gazette's word, not mine.

about it.
Here is a bouquet for my hon. friends:
They know that those who mixed up the League Covenant with the Peace Treaty made a miserable mess of both, and they are by no means certain that the League will function with or without their vote. They are inclined to think that the success of the League will be more a question of commonsense than of voting rights and contracts.
Again I say, if there is to be a quarrel between the United States and ourselves, why, we have to stand for this Dominion in regard to the League of Nations, even if it seems an undesirable thing. It is a bad thing for neighbours and friends to quarrel, bad under any circumstances; but when the neighbours quarrel about some silly thing of no earthly importance, then the quarrel becomes very foolish. The President of the Council (Mr. Rowell) may not desire to be so; but whether he is conscious of this or not, his speeches lately have had a tendency to make trouble between the United States and Canada. If we are to have any row between the United States and Canada, I should like it to be about something important; I do not want to have a row with the United States over this petty question of whether or not we shall have a seat in the Assembly of the League of Nations. I do not think that is important enough to fight about; but if our American friends want to insist upon making it an issue between us, I suppose we have all to stand for Canada.
I contend that by the insistence upon these claims for Canada, harm has been done; no good has come to Canada; you give Canada no status in reality that she did not have before; you accomplish nothing for Canada; but you make trouble between Canada and the United States; you make trouble between Canada and Great Britain. I have at hand a quotation which shows that in this action there is, in 32
all probability, a .source of trouble for Great Britain. I hold in my hand a statement made by Mr. Henry White, one of the American members of the Peace Conference. Recently, he made at Washington to Senator Hitchcock, a statement which I read from the New York Times:
Henry White, a member of the American peace delegation, who recently returned to the United States, called to-day upon Senator Hitchcock and told him in detail of conditions in Europe. Mr. White emphasized the seriousness of the question raised by the Lenroot reservation on voting strength In the League of Nations Assembly. He told Mr. Hitchcock that in his opinion this reservation, which is number 14 in the Lodge group, is a very grave menace to the solidarity of the league. Mr. White explained how the British self-governing dominions, demanded of Great Britain her support of their claims to the right of independent representation, and how they would protest and oppose any effort by this country to disfranchise them. That is what the Lenroot reservation would do, in Mr. White's opinion.
He indicated that the British Government was not particularly concerned over this reservation on its own account,

And remember that the writer of the article is reporting his conversation:

but that the colonies raised such a
clamour about it that Premier Lloyd George had been forced to take cognizance of their position, and to support it, as he did in his recent speech in the House of Commons.
Mr. White confirmed previous reports that there is little concern in Europe, particularly in France, concerning other American reservations, but the Lenroot provision is much more formidable as a bar to compromise than the Article X reservation, in his opinion.
So we have the claim of Canada a source of trouble between Canada and the United States, and this clearly shows that it is a source of trouble between Canada and the Mother Country. For these reasons, it is to be regretted that we ever made the claim for a seat in the Assembly which would be no good to us if we had it and which, I think, would not be in any way to the advantage of Canada.
It may be thought that it is only in Canada that dissent is expressed from this claim. I happen, however, to have found in my reading of the public press that the unwisdom-I do not think the word is too strong-of the Dominions making the claim has made an impression elsewhere. I hold in my hand a clipping from Wellington, New Zealand, which reads:
The Wellington Times urges that the Dominions should declare unequivocally against an apparently indefensible position which is not wanted and which those to whom it does injustice object. Such a declaration would splendidly disavow a policy of " grab all."
Another New Zealand paper, The Post,
says:



Actually there is little cause of quarrel, since the real power of the League is vested in the Council where Great Britain and America have equal votes, without the Dominions' interference. The Dominions abandoned the substance for the shadow when they accepted votes in the Assembly instead of insisting upon an effective voice in the Council where the real work will be done. The Post urges that the Dominions should reconsider the matter, which is exceptionally delicate and difficult for the Imperial authorities, compelling them to defend a position which is not of their devising, which is formally indefensible and which gives the opponents of the Treaty a powerful handle while, as usual, not the Dominions, but Great Britain must bear the brunt.
Therefore, this claim of Canada has had the effect of creating trouble in many quarters, and trouble to no good end. I regret for those reasons that the minister has attached so much importance to it. I do not think there is anything in the situation which warrants us in getting up a row with the Americans on this question.
The President of the Council (Mr. Rowell) told us that we must do one of two things- shall I say? one of three things: We must recede to the old colonial condition, (although if he were asked to define the day on which that colonial condition ceased and some new condition came into \existence, he would have difficulty in doing so); or we must go towards independence; or we must do something else which I have difficulty in defining. With regard to receding to the old colonial condition, nobody proposes anything of the kind. With regard to independence, my hon. friend says-and I am quite sure he is speaking sincerely-that he has no sympathy with the move for independence, and I am in hearty accord with him in that regard. I have said so before, and I hold that view now. But I must tell him that since Canada put forward a claim to a position in the Conference separate and apart from the British Empire, from that day there began to be a discussion in regard to independence in Canada. It is this assertion of a right, separate and apart from Great Britain, that has led men to-day to talk of separation and independence who did not talk about that subject before. I am afraid the matter goes further; I am afraid there is talk of. treating Canada as a party separate from the British nation in her authority and power, and I am afraid it leads to wider talk of worse evils even than independence. With regard to the colonial condition of the past, we know that nobody wants it. With regard to independence, I have no sympathy with it; I am heartily against it; but I can at all events understand what it means, and I can go even so far as to admire the man who argues ]Mr. Fielding.[
in favour of it as there is legitimate ground for his argument. But I do not know what my hon. friend means when he speaks about our going forward in a line of some constitutional development; I do not know what he wants, and we have the right to ask him what he means. I do not know of any grievances that Canada has.
I do not know what wi have to complain of. If my hon. friend knows of any grievance that Canada has which needs a remedy he ought to bring it forward in this House. Half a dozen hon. members in this debate have said to the Government that before they go to any Imperial Conference they should receive a mandate from this House. Well, we have had no motion made in that direction by the ministers, and I do not indulge the hope that they will give us the opportunity for giving any mandate in this matter. I do not think they will bring anything forward, for the good reason that they do not know themselves what they want. There is no grievance, nothing that we want to remedy. I do say that when hon. gentlemen talk about some great change which is to be brought about by the coming Imperial Conference I cannot understand what they mean, and I think that before we go any further in this matter we ought to have, perhaps not at this moment in the debate, some declaration from the ministers as to what change they want, and what they are prepared to recommend to the coming Imperial Conference.
Hon. NEWTON W. ROWELL (President of the Privy Council): May I first express my appreciation of the action of the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) in placing upon Hansard to-day so large a portion of an address which I delivered in the city of Montreal a few years ago? I desire to express not only my appreciation of the fact that he has placed that upon Hansard, but my still greater appreciation of his statement that not only he but all his followers heartily agree with the sentiments of that address. We have therefore, Mr. Speaker, the statement of the leader of the Opposition that he spoke not only for himself but for all the men on the other side of the House when he said that the statements I then made, and which I have repeated in the course of this debate, with reference to Canada's status had the unanimous support of the Liberals who are back of him. They certainly have the unanimous support of the Liberals on this side of the House as well as of the Conservatives. I am therefore in the happy position of being able to voice the unanimous sentiment of

the whole House on this important question. My hon. friend in quoting from that address referred to it as an address upon our constitutional development. The address -my hon. friend has a copy in his hand-is an address on " Liberals and the Empire." It was a review of the part the Liberal party had taken in various important events in connection with the Empire. It is true that when it was issued by the Reform Association Publicity Branch, they put upon the face of it that it was a constitutional review, but the title of the address, which indicates its character, was " Liberals and the Empire," and it only professes to trace the share that Liberals had taken in our constitutional development. The address did not attempt to review the part taken by both parties in these great events, but in dealing with the history of Confederatioh I did refer to the great work of Sir John Macdonald. My hon. friend entirely omitted this reference in his quotations to-day.
It is not my intention to follow my hon. friend through the course of his address. I shall make only one or two further observations with regard to it, and shall then refer to the remarks of my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding). With ^he Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) I jnust confess that we on this side of the House could not but feel profoundly gratified at the stand taken by the leader of the Opposition to-day. It was a complete reversal of the stand taken by the leaders of the Opposition when the German Treaty came before the House. It is true that my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's in his speech to-night has harped back to the same old position that he took before, differing therein very markedly from the leader of the Opposition; but so far as the leader of the Opposition is concerned, he took entirely different ground from that taken by hon. gentlemen opposite when the German Treaty was debated last September, and if the address I delivered some seven years ago has contributed to the conversion of my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition and the members on the other side of the House to a recognition of the status of Canada within the Empire, it has proved one of the most effective addresses I have ever delivered. I am proud of the result. My hon. friend this afternoon instead of taking the position which was taken in the debate last September, that we were not a nation, said, " Oh, yes, we are a nation, but we became a nation many years ago. Sir Wilfrid Laurier made us a nation." Now if he will turn to the 321
address I delivered in this House on the Treaty last September and to the one I delivered here last Thursday, he will see that I drew attention to the fact that Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1897 had claimed for Canada the status of a nation. I emphasized that in September as I emphasized it on Thursday last


Henri Sévérin Béland: Not very loudly.


Newton Wesley Rowell: -to show not only my appreciation of his great work but also how far my hon. friends on the other side had backslidden from the position which Sir Wilfrid Laurier took. I emphasized it in the hope that they might be brought up to date on this question, or at least as far as the position taken by Sir Wilfrid Laurier fifteen or twenty years ago. This is not ,a question of who is or who is not entitled ,to credit for our present position, and 1, shall not discuss it from that standpoint. We are considering a great fact in our country's history, and I think it is important enough to give all parties who have contributed to the, result some share of the credit in connection with it. One cannot but contrast the position taken by the leader of the Opposition this afternoon with the position taken by the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's. My hon. friend the leader of the Opposition paid a tribute this afternoon to the work of the Prime Minister and his colleagues at the Peace Conference. He said they had carried for-word the work of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, that they had maintained Canada's position, and maintained it magnificently, and he added that if they had not done so, they would lhave been derelict in their duty. The hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's rose in his place and said:	The whole
thing was a farce, the Prime Minister and his colleagues should not have gone over to Paris.
What is the position of my hon. friends opposite on this Treaty? Do they stand for Canada and her rights as a nation, not outside but within the British Empire, or do they take the position of my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's who, while he is opposed to centralization, proposes to leave the handling of our affairs in vital matters to the Government of Great Britain.


William Stevens Fielding: He never said so.


Newton Wesley Rowell: Then, what did he say? He said that being present at the Conference was a farce, that Canada had no special interest there, and that the Prime Minister and his colleagues had no right to

be there. My hon. friend will not question that I am fairly stating his position.


William Stevens Fielding: I would not say they had no right to be there. I said it was no good to have them there, and was a disadvantage to Canada.
Mr. ROWELL; Then, it was a disadvantage to Canada to have them there, there was nothing of vital interest to Canada there? Well, Mr. Speaker, if the events in Europe were of such importance , that Canada raised 600,000 men to help-


Arthur Bliss Copp: Oh, let up on that.
Mr; ROWELL:	My hon. friend says:
" Let up on that." Perhaps he does not like to hear about it.


Arthur Bliss Copp: If my hon. friend is alluding to me, and will allow me-


Newton Wesley Rowell: No, my hon. friend may keep his seat and not interrupt. I was answering the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's who said it was not a matter of interest to Canada to have the Prime Minister and his colleagues at the Peace Conference. I say that if the issues in that war were of sufficient interest to Canada to call upon us to raise 600,000 men and to leave 60,000 lying buried in France and Flanders, they were important enough for Canada to be represented at the Conference in an effort to secure a just and satisfactory settlement.
It is my desire to take issue with the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's in the most clear and emphatic manner on his whole conception of Canada's position and status in the British Empire and in matters that are of vital concern to Canada. I agree with the leader of the Opposition that not only would the Prime Minister and his colleagues have been derelict in their duty if they had not maintained our position, but they would have been even more derelict if they had wholly failed to attend the Peace Conference when matters of such vast importance to Canada were under consideration. Did not my hon. friend from Queen's and Shelburne (Mr. Fielding) to-night speak of the obligations imposed on Canada under this Treaty? And my hon. friend the member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) drew the attention of the House to the matter of our obligations under the Treaty. I shall not at present discuss these obligations, but if they are anything like as important as the hon. member for Queen's and Shelburne has suggested to-night, was it not the duty of the Prime Minister and his colleagues to be at

the conference with a view to protecting the interests of Canada? Undoubtedly it was, and they were there in pursuance of that duty. My hon. friend says that this question of Canada's status .in the League is of no importance to Canada. He says that it is of no importance to her to have a voice in the Assembly, and that she will never have any chance of being elected to the Council. Well, Mr. Speaker, I do not to-night intend entering upon a discussion as to the chances of Canada's being elected to the Council of the League. My hon. friend has characterized as absurd the idea that she might be elected. I shall only say that our position in regard to the governing body of the International Labour Organizations is precisely the same as that in connection with the Council of the League. There were eight powers named who were entitled to nominate members of the governing body and only four other nations were to ,be dhosen and elected from all the nations of the world to name the remaining four members; Canada, at the very first meeting of the conference was elected as one df the nations entitled to name a member to the governing body. Therefore, notwithstanding any suggestions which my hon. friend may make to the contrary, there is no absurdity whatever in the idea that Canada might some day be elected to the Council of the League, the election of Canada at the Washington Conference indicates the fine standing which this country enjoys among the nations of the world. My hon. friend has referred to the discussions that are going on in Washington, and has been good enough to suggest that the remarks which I have made have not contributed to a good understanding between Canada and the United States. I beg respectfully to differ from him, they were made to avoid misunderstandings and to maintain a good understanding. I doubt very much whether the remarks which that hon. gentleman made either in the discussion of the Treaty with Germany last September or in the present debate will contribute to a good understanding between the two nations, or will aid in securing just recognition of Canada's position in the United States. I hold in my hand the Congressional Record of the Senate debates of the present week, and I find quoted therein a statement made by my hon. friend when this question was under discussion in September last. I find it quoted by the opponents in the Senate of jOanada's position and as a justification for ,their action. In the course of the discussion, (as appears on page 4307, of the Congressional

Record of Monday, March 8, the following statement appears, by Mr. McCormick:


Mr. McCORMICK:: Mr. President, let me ask the Senator one more question. Does he recall. the speech in the Canadian House of Commons of Mr. Fielding, for 16 years a Minister of the Crown, In which he stated explicitly that logic was on the side of the contention of those in this country who insisted upon an equality of representation, in which he said that New York was more important to this Republic than the Dominion to the Empire? Surely the Senator will recall that speech.
If my hon. friend was right there would be no ground of criticism of his position. But I say he is not right, and it is just such speeches as that which he made in September and the speech he has made to-night that will be used against Canada in her effort to retain her position in the League. My hon. friend employed an illustration which is also quoted in the American senate; He compared Canada with the State of New York. It is very easy for our friends in the United States to fall into an error in connection with the situation, and I think their attitude in some respects is due to a misunderstanding-a misunderstanding materially contributed to by my hon. friend and others in reviewing the situation. Every one realizes that the British Empire bears no relation in its constitution to the United States of America. In the United States there is one government, the federal government, that conscripts men, levies taxation and carries on war. The edicts of that government run through every state in the American Union. It is the only government within the limits of the United States that has any authority to exercise these great powers. There is but one central government in the United States that wages war and makes peace. There can be only one member of the League and therefore only one vote. What is the situation in the British Empire? It is wholly different. No one government in the Empire wages war, conscripts men, levies taxation and negotiates peace. In the British Empire half a dozen governments exercise these functions. Canada did not act by reason of any law or edict of the Imperial 'Government, but on her own authority by the action of this Parliament, just as freely as the United States Congress and Senate acted when they undertook participation in the war. And I say it tends to mislead, not only the people of the United States but the people of Canada, to make any such comparison as my hon. friend made. As there are several selfgoverning nations in the British Empire each is a member of the League and each is entitled to a vote. I was also surprised
at the remarks of my hon. friend from Beauce (Mr. Belaud) in his reference to the terms of the Treaty and certain matters in connection with the boundary, remarks which met with the approval of the hon. member for Queen's and Shelburne. I do not suppose that any statesman present at the conference other than the representatives of the Balkan States, would be able to form any definite opinion in regard to the exact boundary, hut the representatives of Canada would know just as much about the subject as the representatives of the United States. It is not a question whether they knew the exact boundaries or not. It is a question of making peace with a country with which wfe were at war. My hon. friend has referred to the Balkans as if it were a place in which we were not interested. Well, the Balkans do appear to be remote from us, hut it was trouble there in June and July of 1914 that set the world aflame and called forth the troops of Canada and other parts of the Empire to Europe to wage war. And unless the Balkan situation .is cleared up on a basis of justice and equity, by the best solution that the nations can devise, who can tell how soon trouble in the Balkans may again produce the same results and call forth our troops once more? I desire to dissent absolutely from the position and attitude of my hon. friend that a controversy which called Canada's sons to war and may do so again, is not a matter in the wise and sane solution of which the people of Canada are interested. My hon. friend from Beauce- and this also touches the point raised by the hon. member for Brantford-spoke of the provisions of the Treaty and stated that it was quite clear that Canada would not be entitled to be present and have a vote in [DOT]the Council of the League in the event of the question of military contribution being under consideration. My hon. friend from Brantford wanted to know how the question of a military contribution would be settled. I desire to direct his attention to two important provisions of the Treaty.
In Article 16 this clause appears:
It shall be the duty of the Council dn such case to recommend to the several governments concerned what effective military, naval or air force the members of the Deague shall severally contribute to the armed forces to he used to protect the Covenants of the League.
It is the duty of the Council to recommend to the several governments. If my hon. friend will turn to Article 4 of the League, he will find this provision:
Any member of the League not represented on the Council shall be invited to send a re-

presentative to sit as a member at any meeting of the Council during the consideration of matters specially affecting the interests of that member of the League.
It is set forth in language so plain that no one could mistake it that if the Council is called upon to consider a matter affecting the interest of any member of the League, that member must be present and is entitled to a seat. I should not have thought that the matter was open to argument at all. But in order to remove any doubt or apprehension from the mind of my hon. friend, I would like to draw his attention to a commentary on the Covenant of the League of Nations contained in an official document issued by the Government of Great Britain. This official commentary wTas prepared by the Rt. Hon. Lord Robert Cecil, K.C.M.G. and Lieut. General the Rt. Hon. Ian Christian Smuts, K.C., the two men, from the standpoint of the British Empire, who had more to do with framing this Covenant than any other two men and probably had considerably more to do with framing its general outlines than the President of the United States, although there were certain provisions which the President considered essential, and he was no doubt very largely responsible for their being included, particularly, Article 10. Wihat do they say in their commentary on this article?
In the first instance, it is left to individual states to decide whether or not such a breach has occurred and an act of war against the
League been thereby committed	
It iis the duty of the Council, with the help of its military, naval and air advisers to recommend what effective force each member of the League shall supply; for this purpose, each member from which a contribution is required has a night to attend the Council, with the power of veto during the consideration of its particular case.
I should have thought that that was quite clear without that commentary. I should have thought that that was the proper legal interpretation of the Covenant, but when you have that interpretation, which appears to be the. fair, reasonable and proper interpretation in a commentary issued by the British Government, prepared by the two men who are responsible for the framing of the Covenant and which sets out in unmistakable terms the rights of any member who may be called upon to make a contribution to be present, to vote and to exercise the right of veto, I submit that the matter is not open to serious argument. It appears then that no nation can be called upon to make a military contribution without the consent of that nation given at the Council and with its representative present.
IMr. Rowell. 1
As far as Canada is concerned, she cannot be called upon to make any contribution unless her Parliament authorizes it and her representative at the Council approves of it. .


Mr. COCKSHUTT:: If that is the case why does the United States think it necessary to make the reservation I have just read as it has done with reference to Clause 10? The Senate of the United States evidently think that they will be called upon to make a contribution without being consulted under the terms of the Treaty.
|Mr. ROWELL: I do not think it would be proper for me to express an opinion upon the reasons or motives which may have actuated the American Senate in adopting any particular resolution. The President of the United States did not think the reservation necessary, nor did his supporters in the House, when they considered it. The majority on the other side did, and now a sufficient number of votes in the Senate is apparently forthcoming to give the Republicans a majority in favour of the reservation that my hon. friend has referred to. I do not think it is desirable for us in this House to enter into a discussion of the reasons or motives which may have impelled them to take that action.


Mr.   BBLAND@: Has the commentary from which my hon. friend quoted been distributed to the members of the House?


Newton Wesley Rowell: It was printed for distribution last session.


William Stevens Fielding: I presume it never in any way received the assent of the other nations?


Newton Wesley Rowell: I do not suppose it did.


William Stevens Fielding: Therefore, it might be debatable from their point of view.


Newton Wesley Rowell: It is only a commentary but I have never heard any serious question raised as to that being the proper interpretation. The President of the United States gave the same answer when he was asked by the Foreign Relations Committee as to the interpretation he would put upon the clause. As far as I am aware that is the interpretation put upon it by all the statesmen present at the Peace Conference.
It is not important and I should not take up the time of the House in discussing the matter, but my hon. friend referred to Sir George Perley suggesting that he had signed the Treaty without having read it. The an-

swer is here on record already that the principal terms of the Treaty were settled while the Prime Minister and his colleagues were in England although the final form and execution were delayed pending the completion of negotiations for the German and Austrian treaties.
My hon. friend from Beauce (Mr. Beland) put what he considered to be a poser when he asked what would happen in case one of the nations of the Empire did not desire to ratify the Treaty. It would depend entirely on the conditions under which such a question arose. My hon. friend, if he will recall the facts in connection with our history and our foreign relations, will realize that it is quite a common thing for Great Britain to sign a treaty on her own behalf and not on behalf of the self-governing Dominions. It is quite a common thing for her to ratify a treaty on her own behalf and not on behalf of her Dominions. I have in my desk one of those treaties, which will come before the House. That is the International Opium Convention. That was signed in 1912 but Canada did not have a plenipotentiary present to sign it. The Treaty is signed by the British representatives with the reservation of the following declaration:
The article of the present Convention, if ratified by His Britannic Majesty's Government, shall apply to the Government of British India, Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, Hong Kong, and Wei-hai Wei in every respect in the same way as they shall apply to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ; but His Britannic Majesty's Government reserve the right of signing or denouncing separately the said convention in the name of any dominion, colony, dependency, or protectorate of His Majesty other than those which have been specified.
The situation would not be a new or novel one if this House declined to approve of an international obligation entered into by the British Empire, even if His Majesty decided to ratify in respect of Great Britain, [DOT]or in respect of. Great Britain and the Dominions that approved it, but did not ratify it in respect of Canada because Canada did not approve. Surely the situation is not difficult to comprehend and I do not understand all this argument which has been addressed to us in reference to the difficulties of such a situation.


Henri Sévérin Béland: That is not the point.
The point is that the *Prime Minister said that if we did not assent we would no longer he considered a part of the British Empiie


Newton Wesley Rowell: I said in opening it would depend entirely on the conditions under which it arose. If my hon. friend will read
the whole statement made by the Prime Minister I think it is reasonably clear from [DOT]his statement that this was his view. It depends entirely upon the conditions. We might take action under such conditions that we would be virtually declaring ourselves a separate nation of the Empire, but that would not normally be the result as I have pointed out in the case of this particular contention. My recollection is that the Japanese Treaty was in this form, that it did not bind the Domiiiions until they had expressly assented to it; and that after it had been ratified by His Majesty in respect of Great Britain it was subsequently approved by this House and ratified with respect to Canada. It is not a new matter, it is not a difficult matter. All the troubles that my hon. friends are conjuring up are figments of a somewhat disturbed imagination. They are not serious when you look the situation squarely in the face and recognize our constitutional development and the position in which we stand to-day.
I must say that I could not quite reconcile the statement of the leader of the Opposition, supported-by the hon. member for Beauce, that there was danger of some occult centralizing imperialistic influence at work to destroy our autonomy, and the statement of my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) that this Government was proceeding along the lines which were disrupting the British Empire. The two statements cannot be correct.


Henri Sévérin Béland: I do not know.


Newton Wesley Rowell: The truth is, neither is correct..


Andrew Ross McMaster: Might I ask a question? Is the President of the Privy Council unaware that for some years past an organization, with branches throughout the British Empire,, has been busily engaged devising schemes for centralization; also that a very intelligent man has been spending years of his life going around propagating this idea and that a considerable amount of money has been expended in connection with it.


Newton Wesley Rowell: I am aware of it, but 1 might ask, has he converted my hon. friend to his views?


Andrew Ross McMaster: No, decidedly not, and I hope that he has not met any more success with other people. However, there has been the attempt. That is the point made by the leader of the Opposition.


Henri Sévérin Béland: And some progress made.


Newton Wesley Rowell: If the gentleman in question has not met with any success in the case of my hon. friend he has not met with any greater suocess in my case.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I am a good Grit, it is hard in such a matter to make a success with me.


Newton Wesley Rowell: Perhaps it is not fair to allude to my hon. friend in that connection because he did, at the last session, offer the conspicuous example of a member of the Opposition who supported the views of the Government in reference to Canada's position. Therefore my remarks do not apply to the hon. member for Brome (Mr. McMaster). I am very glad to see that the rest of the hon. gentlemen opposite have got back to the good Liberal position on Canada's status stated in my address of seven years ago and re-stated in my address on this Treaty, and which I found when I entered the Government was the good Conservative position also. I found that the Prime Minister and his Conservative colleagues were just as strong in maintaining Canada's right to full autonomy and self-government and her status within the British Empire as any Liberals with whom I have been associated. I found we were all agreed on that issue, and that has made our association in this important work in connection with Treaties of Peace of the most harmonious kind.


Ernest Lapointe: Hear, hear.


Newton Wesley Rowell: And even my hon. friend (Mr. Lapointe) to-day comes in behind our position supporting it and standing for that idea. "While the lamp holds out to burn" -there is an opportunity for my hon. friend.


Jacques Bureau: We will be standing with the leader of the Opposition long after you are gone.


Newton Wesley Rowell: Then my hon. friend
from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) said that we were not only creating some trouble between the United States and ourselves but there was danger of our creating trouble between Great Britain and ourselves. I was interested in the authority my hon. friend was quoting for that statement. Where did he go to get authority for. the statement that we were creating trouble between Canada and Great Britain? My hon. friend went to one of the plenipotentiaries of the United States. The hon. gentleman by his position not only gives comfort to those who are opposing Canada's status, but he draws his inspiration from a representative of the United States not

from a representative of Canada or Great Britain to attack our position here. If my hon. friend wants to find- out the position of the British Government, there is no difficulty in doing so from the members of the British Government themselves. No man could have made a clearer statement, of the necessity and determination of the British Government to stand behind Canada in maintaining her status than did Lord Grey in that famous letter of his, in which he said that there could be no departure from the principle of the representation of the Dominions.
My hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's said he could understand what was meant by independence-he did not agree with that view but he could understand what it meant. He also said that he could quite understand what the old colonial relation meant-he did not agree with that view either but he could understand it. He did not, however, understand what we meant by the present position, the wonderful things that were to be accomplished at this constitutional conference. Well, I did not say that any wonderful things were going to be accomplished at the Constitutional Conference, and I do not think it is difficult to understand the position which this Government takes, which the Government of Great Britain takes, and which the Government of each of the self-governing Dominions takes as the present constitutional relations of the different nations of the Empire. It is this: Although the self-governing Dominions have had the rights of self-government for a long period they have occupied a more or less dependent relation to the Mother Country. They have been steadily growing more independent of the Mother Country in the sense that they have been exercising a larger measure of sovereignty over their own affairs, and the time has come when the Mother says to these Daughter States: "Well, you have been in a measure dependent upon me in the past. I now recognize you as my equals. We stand on an equality as nations of the British family of nations" or "the galaxy of British nations," ,as -Sir Wilfrid Laurier termed it. Is that difficult to understand? A father may have his boys with him in business. They may not be partners although they may be managing various branches of it. The time comes when the father says "I will take you into partnership. You shall be equal with me in your status in the business, although you may not have as much interest, you may not have as much power." The father may retain the majority

interest in the business but the sons are partners, they have the status of partners, there is ajn equality of status. That illustrates the idea although of course it is not an analogy because you cannot apply the same rule to states. I only used the illustration as indicating -what is meant by equality of status. What is the object of a Constitutional Conference? It is to provide improved machinery for consultation and co-operation in matters of common concern. Up to this present time Great Britain has been acting as trustee for all the other nations of the Empire in almost all matters of foreign policy. The time has come when actual participation in matters of foreign policy affecting the Dominions should be enjoyed by the Dominions, and some method of co-operation and consultation must be worked out to this end.
Mr. Speaker, the position of the Government is clear and unequivocal. I thought the position of the Opposition was also clear and unequivocal when my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition, defined ,it this afternoon, but it has become somewhat clouded by the speeches delivered to-night. However, I would rather close the debate under the impression that the leader of the Opposition did speak for all his followers, and that the remarks made this evening which differed from his were but temporary lapses. I am glad to think that the House is unanimous in support of this resolution and of the principles embodied in it as set forth by me when I moved the resolution on Thursday last.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Newton Wesley Rowell: Mr. Speaker, I beg to
move:
That a message be sent to the Senate informing their Honours that this House has adopted a resoluion approving the Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Bulgaria, signed at Neuilly-sur-Seine on the 27th day of November, 1919, and requesting that their Honours will unite with this House in approval of said Treaty by filling up the blank therein with the words "Senate and."


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
On motion of Sir George Foster the House adjourned at 11 p.m.
Wednesday, March 17, 1920.
The House -met at Two o'clock.

George Green Foster: Mr. Speaker, I desire to present
to the House petitions from the United Veterans' League, largely signed, praying for certain legislation to be enacted in reference to returned soldiers.



PATENTS OF INVENTION.

[Stage Direction]
Sir GEORGE FOSTER (Acting Prime Minister) moved for leave 'to introduce Bill No. 19 to amend and consolidate the Acts relating to patents of invention.
Motion agreed to and Bill read the first time.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. ETHIER:: Is ft the intention of -the Government to authorize and apply the provisions of the reclassification of -the Civil Service, on the 1st of April, 1920, which has -been prepared by American efficiency experts appointed therefor and under the direction of the Civil Service Commission; or is it the intention of the Government to reconsider and revise the said reclassification ?


Newton Wesley Rowell: The re-classification is now in process of being applied and it is anticipated the work will be completed shortly.


BRITISH COLUMBIA FISH.
Mr. PECK:: What was the amount and value of fish caught in British Columbia during the year 1919 according to districts, in the following classifications: (a) salmon; (to) halibut; (c) other fish?


Hon. Mr. BALLANTYNE:: Quantity of fish	and value	in British
Columbia, 1919.		
,	Quantity CWt'S.	Value.
Southern district:		
Salmon	227,206	$2,483,897Halibut	32,051	420,832Other fish .. ..	98,619	509,242Northern district:	Salmon 	759,036	4,744,939Halibut	155,315	1,911,648Other fish	56,023	126,847Vancouver Island:	Salmon	538,783	3,691,123Halibut	2,761	33,748Other fish	628,105	991,688The values are those to fishermen at the boat's side.	1


RURAL MAIL ROUTES. (
Mr. BUCHANAN:: 1.	How many rural mail routes were established during the year 1919?
2.	How many rural mail routes have been established up to the present in 1920?
3.	What is the average per mile and per subscriber rate for the delivery of rural mail under new contracts?
4.	What is the present policy in^ regard to the establishment of new rural mail routes?


Hon. Mr. ROWELL:: 1.	34.	[DOT]
2.	3.
3.	(a) $38.89 per mile per annum-calculated on the 'basis of service performed six times a week, (b) $14.09 per annum foT each subscriber.
4.	The Postmaster General has considered it advisable in view of the financial conditions existing at present and the increase in the prices asked for the performance of rural mail delivery service, to put aside for a time the applications for new routes. When circumstances will permit further extensions of the rural mail system the petitions for new services will receive consideration.


WHARF AT STE. ANNE DE BEAUPRE.
Mr. CASGRAIN:: 1.	Is the Government aware that a certain contract was awarded to one Poliquin, to build a wharf at Ste, Anne de Beauprg, in the County of Montmorency?
2.	Is the Government aware that the said work was to be fully and satisfactorily completed on or before the 6th instant?
3.	Has the said work been finished accordingly?
4.	If not, why?
5.	When does the Government expect the work to be completed?
Hon, J. D. REID:
1.	Yes.
2.	No; date of completion is 31st July, 1920.
3.	Answered by answer to No. 2.
4 and 5. When the contract was awarded the season was so far advanced that the contractor was unable to secure necessary timber. Work should be completed by August 1st next.
QUEBEC & SAGUENAY RAILWAY.


Mr CASGRAIN:: 1.	How many pasengers have been carried by the Quebec and Saguenay Railway since the 1st of October, 1919, to date?
2.	What have been the net earnings of the Quebec and Saguenay since the 1st of October to date?


Hon. J. D. REID:: 1.	14,273.
2.	Deficit, $9,648.72.


ARMY BOOTS AND SHOES.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. 'SINCLAIR (Antigonish and Guys-borough) :
1.	How many pairs of army boots and shoes had the Government on hand at the date of the Armistice? .
2.	What was the initial cost of same?
3.	How many pairs have since been sold or
otherwise disposed of?	-
4.	How much was realized from these sales?
Hon Mr. GUTHRIE:: 1.	Boots, 125,894 pairs; shoes, 188,355 pairs.
2.	Boots, $674,358.65; shoes, $322,331.24. '
3.	Boots, 175,971; shoes, 161,906.
4.	Boots, $879,840; shoes, $175,714.40. All these sales were made through the War Purchasing Commission.


NAVAL SERVICE AWARDS.
Mr. STEVENS:: Having regard to the following clause in the report of the Parliamentary Committee on Reestablishment :
" That members of the Naval Service who have served overseas in either Imperial or Canadian naval services or who have served in any seagoing ship in the Canadian Naval Service, outside of the three-mile territorial limit, shall be awarded the Class ' A ' badge with ' Naval ' or suitable words in place of ' C.E.F.' "
1.	Have such badges been issued?
2.	If not, by whose advice or instructions has the above recommendation been disregarded?
3.	Will the Government take immediate steps to see that the Naval authorities comply with the report of the Parliamentary Committee which was approved by Parliament?


Charles Colquhoun Ballantyne: 1,	2 and 3. The quotation mentioned in this inquiry is not the recommendation of the Committee. The recommendation was that "the suggestion should receive the immediate attention of the Government.'' The Naval Department, after consultation with the Militia Department, considered that the badge for naval service should he distinctive from the military badge.


C.E.F.-OFFICERS.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. d'ANJOU:
What are the names of all the officers of the Canadian Overseas Forces who are at present employed at Militia Headquarters and who have been overseas but who have not seen active service at the front?
Hon. Mr. GUTHRIE:: List of Officers employed at Militia Headquarters who were on the strength of the Overseas Military Forces of Canada, but did not see service in France: Major-General Ashton, E. C., C.M.G., Lieut. Bawden, F. H., Major Dickinson, F. R., Captain Dunne, H M., Captain Guest, F., Captain

Holmes, A. W., Captain Kelly, P., Captain Melvin, J. P., Hon. Captain McKinley, J. F., Lt.-Colonel McCoy, S. H., Captain Nesbitt, C. H. F., Lieut. Shouldis, G.


MILITARY DEFAULTERS.-FINES.
Mr. MARCILE (Bagot):: 1.	Has the Government arrived at an understanding with the Quebec Government relative to fines paid by the defaulters of the Military Service Act ?
2.	If not, is it the intention of the Government to give instructions authorizing the Quebec Government to remit said fines to those who have paid them?


Rt. Hon. Mr. DOHERTY:: 1.	Yes. So far as these fines have been received by the Province, they are to be returned to the Dominion.
2.	Answered by No. 1.


RE-CLEANED SCREENINGS.
Mr. SUTHERLAND:: 
Hon. Mr. TOLMIE:: 1.	In November, 1917, the department contracted with the terminal elevators at Fort William and Port Arthur for the purchase of all re-cleaned screenings (passing a set standard) for the crop year ending August, 1,918. Later the contract was renewed to cover similar screenings from the crop year ending August, 1919.
2.	Purchase price was thirty-five ($35) dollars per ton unground in elevators at Fort William and Port Arthur for the entire periods mentioned. Selling price to consumers was, from commencement until August 1, 1918, thirty-five dollars ($35) per ton f.o.b. Fort William, unground in bulk. August 1 to December 31, 1918, thirty-five dollars and fifty cents ($35.50) per ton f.o.b. Fort William, unground in bulk. January 1, 1919, to January 31, 1919, thirty-six dollars ($36) per ton f.o.b. Fort William, unground in bulk. February 1, 1919, to July 1, 1919, twenty-five dollars ($25) per ton f.o.b. Fort William, unground in bulk. July 1 to end of period, twenty-six ($26) per ton f.o.b. Fort William, unground in bulk.
3.	Total loss to date, $96,446.29.
4.	Material was disposed of both ground and unground at option of purchaser. When sold unground, purchaser invariably has made arrangements for grinding at local mill or elsewhere.
5.	The botanical analysis of feed was as follows:
Broken and shrunken wheat .. 46.1 p.c.
WTild buckwheat	
37,1	"Wild oats	
8.6	"Oats	
1.0	"Flax	
0.1	"Chaff	
5.65	"Mustaid v	
0.70	"Other seeds	
0.65	"6.	Apart from advocating to all purchasers of unground material the necessity of carefully grinding this feed and constant inspection by grain inspectors at Fort William and Port Arthur, no other measures have been adopted.7.	Have no knowledge.8.	No unground feed has been sold since August 15, 1919.


QUEBEC, ORIENTAL AND ATLANTIC RAILWAY.
Mr. MARCIL (Bonaventure):: 1.	Has the management of the Canadian National Railways given any consideration to the acquisition of the Quebec, Oriental and Atlantic and the Quebec and Western Railways as part of the Canadian National Railway system, in view of ,the rapid development of business In the counties of Bonaventure and Gaspfi?
2.	If not, will they investigate the desirability of such acquisition?


Hon. J. D. REID:: 1.	No.
2.	If matter is submitted to management it will be duly considered.


POSTMASTERS IN BONAVENTURE.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. iMARCIL (Bonaventure):
1.	How many postmasters have been appointed in Bonaventure county by the Uivil Service Commission, and who are they?
[Stage Direction]
2.	How many of the said appointees are returned soldiers having served at the front and what are their names?
Rt. iHon. Mr. S TFT ON:
1.	(a) Thirteen, postmasters have been appointed in Bonaventure county by the iCivil Service Commission.
(b) Name and office: 1. Arsenault, Jos., Avignon; 2. Blois, IB. W., New Carlisle;
3.	Cyr, Ida K. (Miss), Maria; 4. Essiambre, Jean, Lagace; 5, Faure,. Francisque, Mil-nikek; 6. Leblanc, Theophile, Black Cape; 7. Major, W. F., Hopetown; 8. Olscamp, Joseph, Restigouche; 9. Pike, Edith (Mrs.), Escuminac Flats; 10. Pitre, Wilfrid, Fauvel; 11. Poirier, Emilliene '(Mrs.), St. Alphonse de Caplan; 12. Shaw, M. C. D. (Mrs.), Musselyville; 13. Theberge, J. A P., Mil-nikek, (abandoned the service August 27, 1919).
2.	Three of these appointees are returned soldiers having served at the front, viz.: Faure, Francisque; Blois, Fletcher; Major, W. F. When the other ten civilians were appointed there were no qualified returned soldiers available.

Mr. CALDWELL:: 1.	Has the Dominion Government made any agreement with the Government of New Brunswick whereby they will operate the St. John and Quebec Railroad between Centreville and Westfield Beach, in New Brunswick?
2.	If so, what was the date of such agreement, and on what terms?
3.	Did the Dominion Government make an agreement with the Canadian Pacific Railway Company to secure running rights for the said St. John and Quebec Railway trains over the said Canadian Pacific Railway between Westfield Beach and St. John?
4.	If so, what was the date of such agreement and the terms?
5.	And if the Dominion Government did not make such agreement, who did, and what are the terms?
6.	Is the Dominion Government now operating the St. John and Quebec Railway as part of the Dominion Government Railway system?


Hon. J. D. REID:: 1.	An agreement was made between the Dominion Government and the province of New Brunswick and St. John and Quebec Railway.
2.	Agreement dated November 9,	1916.
The terms are as follows: The Government agreed to pay the St. John and Quebec Railway 40 per cent of the gross earnings.
3.	No.
4.	Answered by No. 4.
5.	St. John and Quebec Railway Co. The terms are as follows: St. John and Quebec Railway Co., are to pay interest on a pro-

portion of the value of the joint section plus a proportion of all working expenses calculated on a wheelage basis.
6.	This line is being operated by the Canadian Government railways as part of the system.


CHAUDIERE STATION.
Mr. BOURASSA:: 1.	Is the Chaudifere station, in the county of Ldvis, under the control of the Government?
2.	If so, is it aware that the station was burned over four years ago, and has been replaced by an unsanitary old freight car which is condemned by the Board of Health of the district of Quebec as being dangerous to the health of the employees and the public?
3.	Does the Government propose to construct in the near future a station which will replace the one which has been destroyed?


Hon. J. D. REID:: 1.	Yes.
2.	The railway is aware that the station was burned four years ago and that it has been replaced by a passenger car, but are not aware that it has been condemned by the Board of Health.
3.	The railway does propose to construct a new station there but on account of the old building having been destroyed as a result of a collision, for which the Grand Trunk Railway was responsible, the question of the size and cost of the new station has been a matter of negotiation with the Grand Trunk and we expect to arrive at a definite understanding with them in the near future.


CANADIAN RAILWAY BOARD.
Mr. SINCLAIR (Antigonish and Guys-borough):: 1.	Who compose the Canadian Railway War Board?
2.	What are their respective salaries?
3.	What was the total expense connected with this board during the calendar year 1919?
4.	Is it the intention of the Government to dispense with the services of this board? If so, when?


Hon. J. D. REID:: The Canadian Railway War Board (known at its inception and for several months thereafter as the Canadian Railway Association for National Defence) was formed at a convention of executives of the Railways of Canada in the city of Montreal on October 23, 1917. The establishment of this organization was suggested by the Minister of Railways and Canals and had for its object the co-ordination of activities of the several railways to the end that the greatest degree of efficiency in the handling of

troops, war supplies etc., would be accomplished. When peace was declared it was found that this organization was so beneficial that the railways decided to continue the organization under the name of the Railway Association of Canada. The expenses are borne by the different railways belonging to the organization, and the Government are under no expense in the matter.


INTERCOLONIAL PROVIDENT FUND.
Mr. SINCLAIR (Antigonish and Guys-borough) :: 1.	How much did the Department of Railways and Canals contribute during the last fiscal year to the Provident Fund of the Intercolonial and Prince Edward Island Railways?
2.	How many employees of the Intercolonial and Prince Edward Island Railways were entitled, during the said fiscal year, to participate in this fund?
3.	How much did the department contribute to each employee on an average? ,


Hon. J. D. REID:: 1.	During the fiscal year ended March 31, 1919, the Department of Railways and Canals contributed $100,000.
2.	12,223.
3.	$8.18.


EIGHT-HOUR DAY-JURISDICTION.
Mr. EULER:: 1.	Is the Government still of the opinion that this Parliament has no power to enact legislation fixing the hours of labour?
2.	If not, is it the intention of the Government to enact the eight-hour day during the present session?


Rt. Hon. Mr. DOHERTY:: 1.	Yes, unless such legislation should become necessary or proper for the purposes set forth in section 132 of the British North America Act.
2.	The enactment of legislation is the function of Parliament. As to proposing legislation should such be called for under Article 132 above mentioned, the Government will announce its intention if and when that situation arises.


CIVIL SERVICE CLASSIFICATION.
Mr. FRIPP:: 1.	What are the names of the persons who prepared the classification of the Civil Service of Canada?
2.	Where do they reside?
3.	What has been their remuneration to date?
4.	By whom were they engaged?
5.	By whom recommended?
6.	What is the period of their engagement?
7.	When will their duties cease?
iRt. Hon. Mr. STFTON:
1.	The classification was prepared by the Civil Service Commission, assisted in a professional way by the firm of Arthur Young & Co., who assigned from time to time certain staff members to assist in the technical phases of the work.
2.	Offices of the firm of Arthur Young & Co. are located in Chicago, New York, Ottawa, Milwaukee and Kansas City.
3.	The firm of Arthur Young & Co. is compensated for its professional services through the payment of fees together with travelling and subsistence expenses for the staff members assigned. The total of these three items for technical assistance in the actual preparation of the classification amounts to $49,107.42.
4.	The firm of Arthur Young & Co. was engaged by the Civil Service Commission in accordance with the Order in Council dated July 18, 1918 (P.C. 1778).
5.	The firm was known by reputation to the Civil 'Service Commission as being the only one, not only in Canada but in the United States, which was equipped through experience and the necessary staff to undertake a commission of this sort.
6.	No stated period.
7.	As soon as the application of the classification is completed; this is estimated to be about May 1, 1920.


GREEK WHEAT CONTRACT.
*Mr. MURPHY:: 1.	Has the attention of the Government been drawn to the following article in "The Farmers' Sun" of February 14, 1920 :


&quot;GREEK WHEAT CONTRACT.&quot;
[Stage Direction]
"The Greek wheat contract muddle in which Lloyd Harris, the Canadian Wheat Board and the Greek Government figure, may result in the Wheat Board being compelled to fulfil the contract entered into by Mr. Harris as Canadian Trade Commissioner, by which Greece received some 12,00'0,0'0'0 bushels of wheat at $2.47 per bushel.
"Prices are now at $3 and the Wheat Board claims that the contract was made for the amount of wheat at market prices.
"If the contract, which Mr. Harris upholds, is kept who will pay the fiddler? According to one prominent Toronto dealer, that is where the producers' participating certificates go up the chimney."
2.	Is the contract mentioned to be fulfilled as to quantity and price in the terms stated in the above article?
3i If so, and a loss results, by whom is such loss to be borne?
Rt. Hon. Mr. SIFTON:: 1. No.
2 and 3. Answered by No. 1.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN.

Mr. HOCKEN:: 1.	How many employees are there in the inside service of the Public Works Department?
2.	How many are males?
3.	How many are females?
4>. How many males are French?
5.	How many females are French?
6.	How many males are Protestants?
7.	How many females are Protestants?


Mr. HOCKEN:: 1. How many employees are there in the inside service of the Post Office Department?
2.	How many are males?
3.	How many are females?
4.	How many males are French?
5.	How many females are French?
6.	How many males are Protestants?
7.	How many females are Protestants?


Mr. HOCKEN:: 1. How many employees are there in the inside service of the Marine and Fisheries Department?
2.	How many are males?
3.	How many are females?
4.	How many males are French?
5.	How many females are French?
6.	How many males are Protestants?
7.	How many females are Protestants?


Mr. HOCKEN:: 1. How many employees - are there in the inside service of the Militia Department?
2.	How many are males?
3.	How many are females?
4.	How many males are French?
5.	How many females are French?
6.	How many males are Protestants?
7.	How many females are Protestants?


Mr. HOCKEN:: 1. How many employees are there in the inside service of the Department of Interior?
2.	How many are males?
3'. How many are females?
4.	How many males are French?
5.	How many females are French?
6.	How many males are Protestants?
7.	How many females are Protestants?


Mr. HOCKEN:: 1. How many employees are there in the inside service of the Department of Trade and Commerce?
2.	How many are males?
3.	How many are females?
4.	How many males are French?
5.	How many females are French?
6.	How many males are Protestants?
7.	How many females are Protestants?


Mr. HOCKEN:: 1. How many employees are there in the inside service of thp Secretary of State Department, including the Printing Bureau?
2.	How many are males?
3.	How many are females?
4.	How many males are French?
5.	How many females are French?
6.	How many males are Protestants?
7.	How many females are Protestants?


Mr. HOCKEN:: 1.	How many employees are there in the inside service of the Daibour Department?
2.	How many are males?
3.	How many are females?
4.	How many males are French?
5.	How many females are French?
6.	How many males are Protestants?
7.	How many females are Protestants?


Mr. HOCKEN:: ' '1. How many employees are there in the inside service of the Railway Department?
2.	How many are males?
3.	How many are females?
4.	How many males are French?
5.	How many females are French?
6.	How many males are Protestants?
7.	How many females are Protestants?


Jacques Bureau: In connection with the
series of questions which are now passed as orders for returns, I should like to ask the Acting Prime Minister (Sir George Foster) if the returns, when they come down, will indicate how many of those in reference to whom information is sought are naturalized British subjects and how many are not.


George Green Foster: I am afraid it will be pretty difficult to get all the information that is asked for in the questions as they stand, and in asking them to stand as an order for a return, we only bind ourselves to bring down such information as we can get.


Jacques Bureau: The status is an easy matter to get.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: There can be no supplementary question under the order of "Questions," and in any event the question must be answered as it is placed on the Order Paper. If the hon. member for Three Rivers (Mr. Bureau) desires additional information he should put a specific question on the Order Paper.


Jacques Bureau: It is just supplementary information.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It must be a question of the hon. gentleman's own; he cannot alter the question put by another member.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAY.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. BUREAU asked:
1.	Has any work been done on any of the lines enumerated in the Second Schedule of Chap. 13, 9 and 10 George V. being an Act to Incorporate the Canadian National Railway Company and respecting Canadian National Railways?
2.	If so, on what particular line has the work been done ?
3.	What kind of work has been done?
4.	How much money has been expended for this work?

5.	How much in construction? In surveys? In expropriations, aiW the purchase of the right of way?
6.	How many station sites have been located on said lines, what is the name of each station and on what particular line?
7.	What is the description of the land upon which it is located? How much was paid for said station site and who was representing the Government or the Canadian National Railways in negotiating the purchase?
8.	If money were paid for any such sites, to what appropriation were they charged and on whose order were they paid?
9.	Has any Order - in Council been passed entrusting said Company with the management and operation of the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Intercolonial Railways?
10.	If so, what is the date of the Order in Council?
11.	If not, why has not such an Order in Council been passed?
George Green Foster: Stands as an
order for a return.


Jacques Bureau: May I be allowed to ask why?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It is entirely at tlie option of the Government.


Jacques Bureau: May I ask when I may expect the returnyto come down? That is one way of evading a question.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. gentleman
should put that question on the Orders of the Day. Question stands as an order for a return.



RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF SOLDIERS.


Mr. G. W. ANDREWS (Centre Winnipeg) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the provision made for re-establishing in civil life the members of His Majesty's forces who served in the late war has in many cases proved inadequate, and that it is desirable that a special committee of this House be appointed to consider what provision can be made to meet such cases, the committee to have power to call for persons, papers and records, to examine witnesses under oath and to report from time to time.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it has been said that it is not so much what a man says as what he does that counts. Also, it has been said that by a man's service to his country his citizenship is proven. Also, "By their works ye shall know' them." I do not claim that all the men who proceeded overseas were citizens of the highest possible type; they were not all plaster saints or high-born financiers, but I do claim that the great, overwhelming majority were amongst the best'citizens of Canada prior to the war.
Amongst them were the flower and youth of Canada. In spite of the fact that all were not possibly of the highest type, I claim that they were second to none in all . those great qualities of self-sacrifice, discipline, courage, fortitude under punishment, and stability of character, which made victory possible. Perhaps I may be permitted as an Englishman to say that I believe there is something in the climate of this northern land of ours that produces men of great virility of character. Well do I remejnber as a new comer thirty years ago listening to the yarns of the old-timers about early days in Canada. Amongst the tales of endurance of the old settlers one story in particular occurs to my mind. It was told that a young man set out in the North country with a load of furs drawn by his dogs. He ran into heavy weather, lost all his food, his fish was all gone, but he made his way ' across the lake against heavy storms and at last, by the utmost perseverance and endurance succeeded in reaching the timber land. Here he built himself a fire, and being without food proceeded to cut off the tails of his poor dogs. He made soup from the tails, drank the soup, fed the bones to the dogs, and eventually arrived at the settlement. When he reached the trading post they [DOT]'aid: "Hello boy, how did you get through?" And he replied: "A little short of tails but otherwise everything was jake." That, I think, illustrates the true spirit of our Canadians-absolutely unafraid in the face of danger, and full of initiative. The distinguishing characteristic of the Canadian forces overseas was the spirit of endurance and absolute determination to conquer or die.
The war has been an education. Men are thinking to-day as they never thought before, and as a result of their thinking these returned soldiers, who are amongst the very best citizens that we have, are organizing, falling into line, linking up for what is commonly known as "a square deal." My hon. friends may well ask: What do you mean by " a square deal?" It is pretty hard perhaps to describe it, because it means something different to almost every man. If hon gentlemen will accompany me for one day in the life of one of these men perhaps they will get a better realization of what a square deal means than in any other way I can suggest.
You will imagine, Mr. Speaker, that it is a June morning, after a more or less strenuous night of shell fire. The sun is just mounting above the horizon, and at this very moment-s-sh! a bigxshell is heard

coming, and it lands about a hundred yards tp your rear. There is a lull and then again is heard-s-sh !-and another big shell lands about one hundred yards short of where you are standing in a little bit of a ditch, really a captured German communication trench. Another delay, and once again-s-sh!-followed by an explosion. The German gunners have the range and the trouble commences in earnest. From that moment, Mr. Speaker, for eight mortal hours everything in the way of shell fire, big and little, comes roaring into that trench. Your comrades are blown up, the trenches are obliterated, and becomes a shambles of dead and wounded. A runner comes from behind and the orders are to hang on at all costs- a German counter attack is expected the moment the shell fire ceases. It does cease after eight mortal hours during which time men face death a thousand times. Then each man stands up not only with his own rifle but with all the rifles that he can grab from his dead friends to repel the counter attack. In this particular case it never comes. But the strain is there-the men are waiting, waiting, waiting. A little later comes an order that the battalion will be relieved to clean up. That means, bury the dead; and our boy amongst others is told off for this purpose. He helps to dig a trench, and collect the dead, and on this particular day they number twenty-one. While the men are stretched there waiting, the officer comes up to read the burial service. He says, "Attention, men. Greater love hath no man than this, that he give up his life for his friend." The officer salutes and carries on. The dead are buried, and the job is nicely finished, when there is another strafe from the Germans, and the graves of the dead are uncovered. The job of burial has to be done once more. It is finally completed, and our man gets back into his little front line and waits to be relieved. It is while he is waiting there that he looks up aloft and sees the stars shining calmly down as they have shone for a million years. The tension of this terrible day relaxes, and he says, " My God, what is it all about? Who is to blame for this Hell? He asks, was it the men that he helped to bury-were they the cause of war? Was it-his company officer? Was it the men across in the German trench, or the German gunners, who were responsible? They had no more to do with the war than we had. He knows it. Was it the brigadier? No, he is under orders. Was it the corps commander who was responsible? No. Was it the Government? If so, our friend makes up 
his mind, that if he is spared by the grace of God to get back, from that day forward he will take a hand in the government of his country. If he is a thinking man, Mr. Speaker, as hundreds and thousands of the men were, and an educated man, he does not stop with the Government, because he knows that the possession of wealth and the control of government can never be separated. Who supplied the party funds? Who came down in delegations from boards of trade and interviewed the Government without ever consulting their local representatives? Were these men the cause of the war and are they to blame? For a while he thinks, yes. But his mind is open, his mind is free, and he sees clearly. He realizes that rich men's sons lie in the grave that he helped to dig that afternoon. He realizes that the Military Service Act played no favourites- it took the rich man's son as well as the poor man's son. Then who is to blame? Ii he is of a socialistic turn of mind, he might think that it. is time the economic power which is now held by a few men in all the countries of the world, which stands behind all governments and must ever stand behind them, was taken out of the hands of these men and placed with the representatives of the people. But that will not satisfy his mind because he knows that individuals compose the nation. What causes war between individuals? Is it lust for power and selfishness, Mr. Speaker? Is that the cause of war, the cause of strife,-selfishness and lust for power? If so, what is the opposite of selfishness? It is love, doing unto other men as they would be done by-the words of the white Christ, the "square deal." The square deal means much or nothing to many minds, but it is a slogan, almost a crusade, to-day with the fifteen millions of men that fought in this war. Nothing less will do. And, Mr. Speaker, the behaviour of our officers, non-commissioned officers, and men in this great fight was so splendid that I have come out with an abiding faith in the decency of human nature. It has been said " as a man sows so shall he also reap." That is true of countries, likewise, I am perfectly satisfied that the great majority of our men who fought, and the great majority of our people who stayed at home, were filled with the spirit of self-sacrifice. Otherwise, we. would never have won the war. As we sow, so shall we reap. If this is not true, Mr. Speaker, it means that there is no justice in this world; it means that our 'civilization is a lie; it means anarchy-red anarchy,-back to nature,-red in tooth and in claw;-that is what it means.

So far as I can learn, Mr. Speaker, it was never the desire of our people that the war should be made a political issue. There may have been differences of opinion as to how the men should be recruited and in respect to other details, but never, so far as I can learn, was it the desire of our people that the war should be made a political issue. And so far as I can learn it is not now their will that the re-establishment of the men and women who suffered through the war should become a political issue. Therefore I appeal to hon. members to tackle this problem in the same spirit which animated our men in France and at home and which helped them to win the war.
Mr. CYRUS W. PECK (Skeena):	Mr. Speaker, I am seconding the motion of my hon. friend in order to get this question before the House. I am quite convinced that the Government is going to give us an opportunity for discussion. But I do not know that I agree with my hon. friend as to the method by which we can best attain the purpose he has in view. The only people I can see any chance of helping us are the Government, because none of the parties opposite have ever said what they are going to do for the returned soldiers.
If this. question is brought up I think it should deal with all matters pertaining to the returned soldier in the following order: Pensions, re-establishment, gratuities. I am going to say right here that I do not for a moment pretend that I shall- support the extreme demands for gratuities that have been made upon the Government. I have told my people that. At the same time, I think we should go into the whole question again, and have it properly ventilated, before, and fully investigated by, a committee sincere in, trying to get to the bottom of it. I have every confidence that the Government is sympathetic, but if they are not I do not see any one else who will help us. Therefore I am going to depend upon' the Government; I am sure they will not let us down.	,
Mr. RICHARD C. COOPER (Vancouver South): Mr. Speaker, I do not intend to discuss in any detail the motion brought forward by my hon. friend from Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Andrews), but I do seriously ask the Government to appoint either a new committee similar to the Committee on Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment which we had last session, or give added powers to the Pensions Committee to deal with this ques-33	'
tion. There are still many questions of vital interest to the returned men that have not yet been satisfied. There is only one I intend to mention, it is one that was dealt with by the Committee on Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment last session. I refer to life insurance. >A recommendation was made to the Government that action should be taken to see what could be done in the matter. So far as I know nothing further has been done. It has been discussed already this session, and in my opinion it is one of the most serious questions we have to consider in the future in connection with the man who served in the front line trenches. There are very few men, who, even if not actually wounded, have not received soipe physical or mental disability, and they will have to be considered and helped so far as life insurance is concerned.
I heartily support my hon. friend's motion, and I sincerely trust that the Government will not waste any further time in stating their intention of referring the subject matter to a committee to be thoroughly gone into.


Mr. H. A. MACKIE (East Edmonton):: Mr. Speaker, if the resolution were pressed to a vote I would support it. At the same time I think it unfortunate that the mover has not given a larger number of cases which this committee is supposed to deal with. In any event, I wish to say, if we are obliged to-day to call upon a committee to further study matters relating to our returned soldiers, it is due largely to the administration of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. A number of the questions which were settled for them by the committee last year could have been settled by a deputy or a minister. The fact remains, Sir,-and my information is not only from friends in the House but from the soldiers themselves-that the deputy is a man whom they do not care to go to because he is not a soldier; he has nothing in common with them, although he may be sympathetic. The minister of the department is also, they say, hard to approach and does not. give ~them the sympathy which they feel they ought to receive.
If it were not for the fact that I possess information that this department must necessarily cease its work very shortly, I would move an amendment to this resolution that, instead of having a committee of the House appointed to further inquire how matters may be dealt with, a minister should be appointed who is a soldier, and that his deputy should also be a soldier, so that the returned soldiers could tell their



grievances frankly and fully to men of their own kind who would be able to understand exactly what was required.
If it is not too late I would suggest that a deputy minister be appointed who is a soldier, so that these men may get a lot of their grievances redressed without coming before this proposed committee. A committee of this House is not satisfactory; it was not satisfactory last year. The report was unsatisfactory, and it may be that, the report of the proposed committee will be also unsatisfactory.
Mr. JOHN H. BURNHAM (West Peterborough) : Mr. Speaker, I sent a copy of this resolution to Peterborough, where the convention of the Great War Veterans of the province is now being held. I asked them to pronounce upon it, and they said they would do so. As the convention is still proceeding I should like to ask the member for Centre Winnipeg if it would be possible for him to adjourn the debate. As we are all aware, the committee appointed to look into this matter last session brought in a report, but as that report in several respects did not quite satisfy the soldiers, and the House, it. was held open, and after a somewhat strenuous debate it was agreed that the Government would hear whatever further complaints the soldiers had to make. I understood the report would be brought back to the House and be adopted in the usual way, but I have heard nothing about it since, nor have I heard what additional complaints have been preferred or what has been done with regard to the matter.
It would appear to me that the proposition contained in this resolution conflicts directly with the work of the committee already in existence, because, so far as I know, that committee has.not yet been released. Perhaps the Government will tell us what additional work has been done in this respect since that debate of last session. It might meet the purpose of this resolution if the assurance could be given that while the work of that committee has not been brought to a conclusion, it is on the way to it.
Mr. A. B. McCOIG (Kent, Ontd:	Mr. Speaker, I wish to express my approval of the resolution proposed by the member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Andrews). It is proper and just that a committee of this House should be appointed with a view to bringing about a more speedy re-establishment of the returned soldier into civil life. I know a number of cases in my section of the country where returned men who have been desirous of locating on farms and of
['Mr. Mackie.]
taking up farming work as a profession have been held back for months and do not know whether or not they can get land for the spring operations. In some cases the men have been assured that farms would be allotted to them, but in the meantime the prices of agricultural implements and equipment have increased to such an extent that those who want to equip their farms for the crop of 1920 will be under the painful necessity of paying from 20 to 25 per cent more for implements and equipment than they would have had to pay had they got the land earlier. It would have been better if a committee had been appointed at an earlier day, but certainly the Government should now appoint this committee and see that all possible assistance is rendered to those returned men who are desirous of locating on farms, as well as those who wish to re-establish themselves in other occupations.


Mr. PETER McGIBBON (Muskoka):: I
desire to support this resolution and to join with the member for Skeena (Mr. Peck) in his intentiofi not to support extreme demands made either in this House or out of it. I am not unmindful of the great service that has been done by this House to the returned soldier. The greatest service they did them or could have done them was the affording of sufficient support at the front. The gratuity which was given to the men on their return was a good one and one which they ought to be grateful for. I think that the great bulk of the'men are grateful for it. But the first thing that this House and this country have to do is to look after the crippled, the widows, and the orphans. I cannot honestly say that that task has yet been fairly done. I hope that the Government will see its way clear to appoint a committee whose sole function will be to inquire into the matter of pensions. I do not say that the pensions have not been fairly well administered or that the scale of pensions is not reasonably high. Undoubtedly our pension scale is the highest in the world, and that is something for which our country ought to get credit. But in the actual administration of the pensions it happens that dependents, and the wounded and the crippled are in many cases not given enough money to live on. That, after all, is the main thing. The question is not whether our pension scale is the highest or the lowest; it is whether those to whom pensions are payable are receiving enough to enable them to live under present conditions. I think that a great deal of the difficulty ifi this re-

gard could be overcome through administrative acts. But after two years' experience in dealing with many of these cases I am thoroughly convinced that the medical man is one of the greatest sources of trouble. I would like the House to grasp that point. The Pension Board has to work under a disability which they cannot override; in many cases they are subject to the decisions of medical men who are not in touch with the returned soldier and whose judgments and opinions vary considerably in different cases. I could cite cases of men who alre disabled to the extent of being unable to do any work at all and who are drawing only $12 to $15 a month by way of pension. I am not blaming the Government or the Pension Board for that; I believe that the three members of the board are efficient men who take a sympathie attitude and who are anxious to do justice to the soldiers and to the widows and orphans who are pensioners of this country. But as I have said, the board,are too much bound by regulations; they have not enough freedom, and the medical examiner is not in sufficiently close contact with the applicant for pensions.
Closely associated with this matter is the matter of life insurance. Many men who have been disabled during the war were unable to obtain the benefit of life insurance because of the fact that the companies levied a rate higher than they were able to pay, and to-day they are unable to get [DOT]the insurance. The Government will not be doing justice to these men until it puts them in the position they would have been in had they incurred no war disability. The first thing we have to do is to look after the disabled and the war dependents; the next thing is to look after insurance; and the third-in connection with which, I realize, there are great difficulties-is to re-establish the men in civil life. I am not in sympathy, and never was, with the demand for a $2,000 gratuity. I do not believe that any man who gave his services voluntarily, as most of our men did, has a right to come back here and make a demand like that upon his country. I go further and say that, ninety per cent of the -[DOT]men are not making such a demand; I have not had five men come to me and ask me to support it. But a large number of returned men are finding it difficult to get back into civil life, and many of those who are becoming re-established are doing so under great disabilities and with much hardship. I can cite cases of bank clerks, for instance, who hpon their return from the front were offered their former positions 33J
at the same salary that they were receiving when they left them five years ago, while those who had remained at home had [DOT]got increases of perhaps $100 a year, making a difference of $400 or $500. Then there is the great student body; I think that a greater claim could be made out for them than any other class. Students are drawn from all classes of society, from the poor as. well as from the rich. I am not in favour *of differentiating at all; I believe that one man's effort is as good as another's and should be dealt with accordingly. Many oi these students have suffered great hardships and met with great difficulty in getting re-established in civil life. The problem is a difficult one, I know; it is one to-which the best thought of men in this House and out of it has been given. But I do hope that the Government will appoint a committee to go into this question, and this question alone, because I think it is big enough to engage the attention of a committee. The Pension Committee will have plenty of work on their hands. Let us try to do what we can to be fair and just to everybody. I would be the last man, I think, to ask in this House for anything that is unreasonable or unfair; but .1 think that Canada cannot afford to have it said that we did not at least endeavour to do justice to the men who have served this country for the last four or five years.
Mr. THOMAS W. CALDWELL (Victoria and Carleton, N.B.): Mr. Speaker, I wish to put myself on record as being in favour of the motion that a special committee be appointed to inquire into the re-establishment of returned men. One of the speakers on the other side has rather found fault that the mover of the resolution did not cite many branches of the service that should be investigated by this committee. I may be able to give some. I do not wish to cover the whole ground, but there are some cases that came under my immediate notice in our province and that I would like to bring to the attention of the House at this time. One is in regard to the matter of pensions which I think the hon. member for Muskoka (Mr. McGibbon) mentioned a few moments ago. The hon. member spoke of the medical men- being tied down by regulations; he said that they did not have free enough scope in deciding as to pensions. Another thing he said,- and I heartily agree with him-was that the medical examiner is not brought into close enough touch with the soldier who is applying for a pension. I have the papers here in regard to a man about whom

si spoke briefly, on Monday, who was granted a disability pension in July, having been in the military hospital for something like three months or more before this pension was granted to him. The physician who 'examined him for the pension was the physician who had attended him during those three months. I visited the man in the hospital during that period, and for a certain length of time he was allowed to walk out only fifteen minutes in the forenoon and fifteen minutes in the afternoon. Later on, he was allowed to walk out for thirty minutes in the forenoon and thirty minutes in the afternoon. So, it will be understood that this man was in rather a weak condition. At the end of about three months in the hospital he was granted a full disability pension, this being the finding of the doctors at that time:
JBoard of Pension Commissioners for Canada.
43 Canada Life Bldg.,
St. John, N.B., July 18, 1919.
Sir;

i have the honour by direction to inform you that this office has given full and careful consideration to the proceedings of the Medical Board which examined you prior to your discharge from the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment and to the other documents and information on your file. It has been decided to recommend that you be awarded a Class 1 pension at the rate of $600 per annum. If you are married, you will be entitled to a further $96 per annum. If you have children you will also be entitled to a further $144 per annum for the first child, $120 per annum for the second child and $96 per annum for each additional child. Your pension commences on July 5, 1919.
This man had three children, and he was paid this pension, from the 7th day of July , until the end of August. You will notice, Mr. Speaker, that he was granted this full disability pension after careful consideration had been given to the proceedings of the Medical Board and on the examination of a physician who had been attending him for at least three months in the hospital. On November 3, this man received the following notice, and I understand this latter [DOT]decision was made by a physician who never saw the soldier. This is from the Pension Commissioners at Ottawa:
JBoard of Pension Commissioners for Canada.
Ottawa, November 3, 1919.
Sir:-I have the honour to inform you that *very careful consideration has been given to the recommendation that you be awarded pension covering total disability as the result of tuberculosis.
It is noted that you were discharged in 1918 as the result of over age and debility. Several [DOT]examinations in the course of the next two years showed that you had no disability other than a slight difficulty in walking as a result [DOT]of gunshot wound of the leg.
[Mr. Caldwell. 1
Almost three years after discharge you were taken on the strength of the Department of Soldiers' Re-establishment for sanatorium treatment, and upon discharge it is shown that very sparse and scant signs of tuberculosis exist, and such as are at present would no-t appear to be in any way related to your military service, after careful perusal of the history of your case.
Future payments on your account will, therefore, be made at the rate in force prior to your commencing treatment with the D.iS.C.R., covering the disability shown to exist to the extent of five per cent.
Your obedient servant,
Stanley B. Coristine,
The Secretary, Board of Pension Commissioners for Canada.
Rer. M.
This soldier is receiving for this five per cent disability $3 a month; for his wife, 75 cents a month; and $1.75 a month for his three children. Notwithstanding the fact that the doctor who had been attending him for three months pronounced him totally disabled, the doctor who,s I understand, never saw the case, after giving careful consideration, not to the case but to the history of the case, decided that the man was only five per cent disabled. As I pointed out to the House on Monday, this family applied in January, 1920, for aid from the Patriotic Fund, and Dr. Rankine, the doctor whom the military authorities had appointed in Woodstock-and I may tell the House that this gentleman is one of the foremost doctors in our province, a man of the highest integrity, a man whose honour has never been questioned-signed this man's application for aid from the Patriotic Fund and declared him to be one hundred per cent disabled. This doctor had also been attending this man, as I think can be proved by looking up the records in the Pension Bureau at Ottawa where it will be found that the Pension Commis-
3 p.m. sion paid this man's doctor bill tor treatment at the man's own residence. They also paid, or have agreed to pay, Dr. Grant for attending this man in his own home. Dr. Grant also signed this man's supplication for aid from the Patriotic Fund and declared him to be one hundred per cent disabled. There is something wrong with our pension law or with the putting of it into operation, and I should be inclined to think that there was something wrong with both phases.
There is one other matter in regard to soldier's re-establishment about which I wish to speak, and that is the settling of returned men on the land. I am perhaps in as good a position to speak of thfe facts as any other hon. member, having been in

close touch with that work in our province since it was first organized,I was the Chairman of the Agricultural Qualification Committee from the time it was first organized until I had to resign to accept the nomination to run in the by-election last October.
I was also a member of the Loan Committee, and in this way I was in very close touch with the work in our province. I do not wish to criticise the Soldiers' Settlement Act unnecessarily, because I believe it is a good Act and was designed for a good purpose, and is largely fulfilling that purpose. I do -not, however, think that it is going to increase production in the eastern provinces, although it may do so in the western provinces where there is virgin prairie land on which they can settle these men. In New Brunswick and perhaps all the other eastern provinces there is very little such land. Nearly all the virgin lands in the East are -wooded, and such lands can be worked best by men who have had experience in these conditions of cultivation. I do not think production will be increased by putting on such a farm a total stranger to conditions in the particular district. I have no fault to find with the purpose of the Act; I think it a very wise thing to establish these men in one of the noblest callings of the present day, that is, the production of the food necessary to feed the starving millions of the world. I think, however, that the terms of the Soldiers' Settlement Act require modifying in some respects. As hon. members are aware, these men have twenty-five years to pay for the farm on the amortization plan; they have six years to pay off the loan for stock and equipment, beginning with the third year, -they do not pay anything for the first two years on the stock and equipment loan, and that, I think, is a very good provision. I think the time for paying off the loan for stock and equipment should be extended for a longer period, and I will show the House a little later on how I arrive at this conclusion. Every man who was associated with me in that work in New Brunswick-and I do not think I am violating anyone's confidence in saying this-during the past summer and the previous winter, held the same view that I hold, namely, that it will be utterly impossible for these men to make their payments the third, fourth, fifth and sixth years. We had a detail d report made of what the cleared land was worth per acre, as well as the wooded land, together with a value of the buildings. We also secured a statement of the last two crops raised on the
farm, and if it was impossible to get this we asked our inspector to make an estimate-of the possible crop production of the farm. We took first the price asked for the farm and estimated what the man's yearly payments would be for the farm with stock and equipment necessary to operate it. From the total crop production of the farm we then had to deduct the actual cost of producing the crop, in which were included the man's living expenses for himself and his family for the year, and other indispensable expenditures. We were then in a position to know precisely what the man . would have left at the end of the year to make his payments. Let us take the case of a soldier receiving the maximum loan- and in this connection I desire to express my conviction that there is another room for improvement in the Act. The maximum loan, in my opinion, is too small to be of any practical advantage to the borrower, for you cannot buy a very extensive farm with proper buildings for $5,000. Any hon. member in this House who has ever engaged in farming will realize that a farmer must work a certain portion of his land for the keep of himself and his family. If you- double the acreage, the net profit from the added portion is far greater than from the first. It would nearly take a hundred acre farm to support an ordinary family. The man getting the maximum loan of $8,000 would pay $5,000 for the farm,. $2,000 for stock and equipment and $1,000 for permanent improvements. His payments yearly for 25 years on the farm would be $390. On the third, fourth, fifth and sixth years his payments on stock and equipment would be $564 a year. And on a farm of this kind his tax would be in the neighborhood of $60 and his insurance $20. His total payments -would therefore be $1,034 a year for these four years, which would take almost 13 per cent of a net profit on the whole investment of $8,COO. In figuring up the purchases which we made during the summer-we had about one hundred applications per month in New Brunswick alone-we found that very few of the farms would return a net profit-after allowing for actual cost of production not including wages for the man and his family-apart from actual living expenses. We learned that very few of these farms would bring a net profit of more than ten per cent, and some less. I believe, however, that if the time were extended for payment of the loan for stock and equipment to twenty-five years beginning at the third year it would be possible for the borrower to meet

his payments. If we allowed twenty-five years for the whole payment of the loan his payments would be $544 yearly and his taxes and insurance $80, making a yearly payment of $624 a year for twenty-five years, or nearly 8 per cent on the total investment. Of course, one objection that might be raised to the extension of time in regard to stock and equipment would be that the stock and equipment would not be good security after six years. But if I understand the Act correctly, and I think I do, everything that the man ever owns, farm, stock and equipment, including increase of his stock or any equipment he may acquire later, will still be held as security for the land; and as he cannot keep on farming without replacing his equipment when it wears out he will necessarily always have complete equipment of machinery on the farm, as well as stock. The man would be farming under Government supervision so that it would be impossible for him to allow his stock or equipment to deteriorate without the board being immediately aware of it. The field supervisors are supposed to pay these men monthly visits. Let us suppose that a man were given twenty-five years in which to make his payment; we shall see what the Government's security would be like at the end of six years. In the first place, he has to pay down 10 per cent of the purchase price- in the case assumed, this payment would be $500-before he gets possession of the farm. At the end of six years he would have paid $390 a year on his farm, or a payment of $2,340, and $154 a year, or within a fraction of that sum, for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth years on the stock and equipment loan. Thus at the end of six years he would have paid $3,456. This would make this property a better security to the Government than it -was at the outset. For if the man has to pay out every last dollar that he can rake and scrape in order to meet his payments he will not be able to replace his stock and equipment; but if he is given a sufficiently long time in which to pay he will be able to make replacements when necessary. There is also a provision in the Act permitting soldiers to make payments more quickly if they see fit and are able to do so, and my belief is that these men would be only too anxious to make their payments as. quickly as possible, because the more they pay yearly the less their interest charges. These men have no equity in the land and no credit with any one. They are not able to do business the same as other men until their fMr. Caldwell.]'
loan is fully paid. During the present session I have received a number of letters from those who were settled last summer inquiring as to what method they should adopt to secure fertilizer for the coming spring's planting. The fertilizer dealers will not advance them any fertilizer because these farmers have no security to offer; you cannot collect a cent from them unless they are willing to pay, their property being held by the board until the loan is paid. This is right, because, I admit, the board must protect itself. I desire to read that section of the Act dealing with repayment to show why it is necessary to make it possible for the men to meet the payments when they fall due;
AH sales of property, real, personal or other, made pursuant to the provisions of this order and whereon any balance of the sale price shall remain payable by instalments, shall be evidenced by agreement of sale, which shall fully set forth the terms of sale. If any instalment mentioned in any such agreement of sale ds not punctually made, or if default is made in respect to any other provision of such agreement of sale, the .Board shall be at liberty, without any formal re-entry or re-taking, and without resort to proceedings in equity or at law, to rescind such agreement, to cancel such agreement of sale and to recall the property, real, personal or other, to another settler. The effect of such rescission and cancellation shall be to vest such property in the Board absolutely free and discharged of all rights and claims of the settler and of all persons claiming or entitled to claim through or under him for any estate in, or lien, charge or encumbrance upon or against such property. If and when such property is resold by the Board any surplus remains in its hands beyond the amount owing to it as balance of the sale price and interest at five per cent per annum and expenses of taking over and reselling the property, the Board may pay such surplus- to the settler, but if, instead, a deficiency arises, that deficiency shall be paid by the settler to the Board, which shall have a right of action against him therefore. Before exercising the rights by this section given the Board shall give to the settler notice of its intention so to do, which notice shall be deemed duly given if mailed in any post office by registered letter addressed to the settler at his last address known to the Board thirty clear days before the Board acts thereunder.
There is another feature of the Act to which I think some attention should be given. The man's wife does not have any right of dower in the land until the loan is fully paid, and no judgment bill of sale or any other lien can be executed against the property pending that time. Even his crop cannot be seized for debt. I do not find fault with these provisions; they are absolutely necessary, I think, to protect the Soldiers' Settlement Board. On the other hand, I think it will be realized that, it is imperative that the Government should not pass any regulation the terms and condi-

tions of which it will be impossible for these soldier settlers to comply with and I think I have made it clear to the House that it is practically impossible for these men to meet their payments in the third, fourth, fifth arid sixth years under the Act as it is at present.
There is one other feature of soldiers' reestablishment that I would like to speak of *as briefly as I can-because I" think there is a feeling in the country that the time of the House is wasted in long speeches and I do not want to be among those who transgress. What I desire to say has reference to university students who enlisted and went overseas. The p*ension laiy, 1 believe, makes provision for a man who comes back disabled and not able to t$ke up his vocation where he left off. He is given training in some other department that he may wish to take up. While these students may come back absolutely fit physically, they are not in a position to take up anything and become earning entities in the country. They will have to spend two, three or four years before they are in a position to take their places in the world and even to earn their daily bread. I believe these men should be granted something by -way of gift or loan. I am not very much in favour of a gift to anybody, and I do >
not believe that any money given in that way can be considered as a gift or charity at all. I do not want to be misunderstood in that respect. . I be-lieye they are asking for a gratuity in order to educate themselves. I think they should haye some assistance along these lines in the way of a gratuity and that they should be granted the balance of the money they need by way of loan to enable them to finish their education.


Mr. R. J. MANION (Fort Willian and Rainy River):: Mr. Speaker, I shall not
take up very many minutes of the time of the House on this question, but I should like in a general way to support the resolution favouring the appointment of a special committee, or perhaps the continuation of the same committee as that which dealt with this question last year, to further consider the matter. Last year when the committee brought in their report, the House as a whole, including the hon. member for Ceqtre Winnipeg (Mr. Andrews) adopted it. But at the same time there was an understands ing that there would be further consideration given to some aspects of the report. One clause of the report said that the pensions in the case of the dependents of some of the soldiers who died at the front were inadequate. Having mentioned it before
this session, I will not take time to discuss it further, but I believe they are inadequate and I think that is one of the questions which should come before that committee, or whatever committee deals with the question. The question of insurance was another matter which was discussed and favourably commented upon by the Committee. I believe that should be looked into also. Last year in my remarks, I took up the question of extending loans which the , committee had recommended to disabled men. I suggested that these loans be extended to all needy cases. I have seen no reason to change that opinion since last year. I shall take a moment to read my remarks in the House last year upon that question:
The Committee have suggested loans only to the disabled. I personally cannot see why it - should be absolutely impossible to work out a system of loans which would be extended to the needy as well as to the disabled. My hon. friend, from Vancouver (Mr. Cooper) makes the statement that they would all be needy. I do not admit that. I think there would probably be 200,000. or half of he soldiers who came back from the front, who Would be looked upon as *ot demanding a loan made to men who absolutely needed it. My hon. friend from Vancouver, my hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. Griesbach) and X are all returned soldiers, and we would be amongst those who would not under any circumstances touch a loan
of that kind	 I am merely offering
this as a suggestion. I may be wrong but still it is something that I should like to have the Government consider. If 200.000 men asked for a loan of $500 each, these being needy cases, it would only amount to $100,000,000 and it is not impossible to raise that $100,000,000 in this country.
I also took up the question of insurance at that time and I said, regarding that proposition:
The third proposition which I have to make is in regard ito life insurance. The committee has gone into the question of life insurance and it has recommended that the matter should be further inquired into. I agree with that. I think the Government has a duty to perform and that is to work out some scheme to provide for men who have served and who cannot get insurance in the regular way from the legitimate insurance companies.
I also said:
Finally, in many eases, the pensions have been inadequate. I believe 'that the rate of pensions should he increased1 in a large number of cases, as was suggested by the hon. member for Brantford (Mr. Cockshutt) this afternoon.
These are a few of the things I said last year and they dealt with a number of matters in the report which I do not think were completely worked out, not because the .committee neglected to work them out, but because of lack of time. The committee admitted themselves that they should have


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The motion for the adjournment of the debate is not debatable. Unless the minister withdraws it the member for Quebec South cannot proceed.


George Green Foster: Then I will not put the motion just yet; some one else may do it. I do not wish to cut off discussion.


Mr. POWER:: I thank the leader of the Government for his kindness. I would not be acting consistently with my own views or with those of the party which I have the honour to support if I did not approve most heartily of the resolution introduced by the member for Winnipeg Centre (Mr. Andrews). In the closing days of the last session a report of a Committee on Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment was brought in. It was moved by the leader ef the Opposition (Hon. Mr. Mackenzie King) that the report be not concurred in, but that it be referred back to the committee for further consideration. The reason for this concurrence was that the provisions for the re-establishment of the soldier was not adequate. Surely if those provisions are not adequate now, they were not adequate then, when we were on the threshold of a very hard winter. What astonishes me is to hear the leader of the Government-whose attitude I assume, is supported by members of the Government and also by hon. gentlemen on the other side who have spoken as well as some who have not spoken-say now: " It is quite true that the provisions for the re-establishment of the soldier are not adequate. Last year they were adequate: We had to vote $40,000,000 without delay; we had no time to study the matter further." But now, four months afterwards, when some of the men who needed the money then may have since starved,-I know some provision was made for necessitous cases, but a great many of the necessitous cases did not apply for pubic
charity-now, I say, when a great many of these men may have starved, the provisions for the re-establishment of the returned soldier are no longer adequate.
Mr. Speaker, I support the motion of the member for Centre Winnipeg, but I hope that the adoption of the suggestion embodied in this resolution-and I say this without desiring to make any reflections upon my hon. friend (Mr. Andrews)-will not be used by the guilty parties-by the members of the Government and hon. gentlemen opposite who are guilty of having said to the soldier: " We will do this and we will do that for you," but have neglected to fulfil their promises;-I hope, I say, that this committee will not be used as a camouflage to be presented to the Great War Veterans' Convention which is to meet in Montreal next week. I sincerely hope that when the soldiers justly complain to their representatives and to the Government that such and such a promise was not kept, they will not be told once more: " We have appointed a committee to look into this." The soldiers are sick and tired of committees. We have been appointing committees on this and committees on that ever since the soldiers first put their claims before the public. I hope, therefore, that it is not with this object in view that a committee on re-establishment is being granted. Suppose we had a committee on re-establishment, may I ask the hon gentleman whether the Government-


Hon. Mr. MEIGHEN:: When the hon.
member supports this motion, is he not himself supporting another committee now? '


Lawrence Geoffrey Power: I am supporting another
, committee now, as I supported a committee last November, on the ground that the provisions made for the re-establishment of the soldier were inadequate; and if they were inadequate then, they are inadequate now. I am quite consistent, therefore, in supporting such a committee.


Arthur Meighen: But not in condemning committees and supporting them at the same time.


Lawrence Geoffrey Power: I am not condemning committees. I say that the soldier is fed up with hearing about committees and having his just claims shelved by reference to committees. I am quite willing to serve on any committee and to show once more that promises haye not been kept and that the Government has not well administered matters in that respect. But in what respect, if the provisions made for last year were in-

adequate, should we have a new committee? Shall it be on pensions? We are to be granted a committee on pensions. The President of the Council (Hon. Mr. Rowell) told us the other day that a pensions committee was to be appointed this year to inquire once more into the whole question. There is, therefore, no need for a supercommittee on pensions. Is it to be with regard to the question of a cash gratuity? The Government have already made up their mind that there is to be no gratuity of $2,000 or of any such extra amount. I suppose they have not changed their minds materially since last November, unless from some unknown source we have discovered another billion or so to augment our revenue. I hardly think we have. We may have spent that much, but we have hardly discovered another billion.


Jacques Bureau: It is on the wrong side of the sheet.


Lawrence Geoffrey Power: I support this motion because I think that a thorough investigation should be made into the land settlement scheme, but not by such a committee as the Re-establishment Committee of last year, which was largely composed of city men. For instance, I was on the Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment Committee of last .year, and when the question of land settlement came up I was in the' position of not knowing a plough from a harrow. I did not know anything about land settlement, and I am sure that other members of the committee were similarly situated. The Government will be well advised-this is by way of advice, not of criticism-to pick out those particular phases of re-establishment which really need to be looked into .and have them dealt with by separate committees, each made up of men competent to judge of what should be done. So far as land settlement is concerned, I would recommend that the Government address themselves to our worthy friends of the former cross benches who now sit on my left; I am quite sure that the Government could obtain considerable information from them.
The question of insurance was left in abeyance last year. That is a subject which really requires a special committee; an ordinary committee cannot possibly go into such a question as that of sub-standard insurance, the technical term, I understand, for the kind of insurance demanded by the member for Muskoka (Mr. Peter McGib-bon). On such a committee there should be technical men, men trained in the profession of insurance, men who know something about, the matter.

Vocational training is another sphere of activity in connection with soldiers' civil reestablishment. I understand that in February of this year vocational training ceased and that work is no longer being carried on. If the committee is to be a committee such as we had last year and is to bring in recommendations similar to those brought in last year, I cannot for the life of me see the utility of it. If we are going to take up separately new subjects, subjects that have not been so far treated, thbn the committee will be doing good work and I congratulate the Government on having on this late date granted this committee. If it is to repeat again recommendations which we gave last year and act on them as we acted on last year's recommendations, then we might as well not appoint a committee; w-e do not want it. The whole thing amounts to this; the first principal question which should be treated with regard to the re-establishment of the soldier is this, that the soldier be treated and looked after by soldiers. The first advice I shall give to the Government is: Dismiss your Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. The second word of advice is: Dismiss your Deputy Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment, and the third word of advice is: When you appoint another minister, let us have him in this House where we can see him and talk to him. I am willing to wager that 50 per cent of the members of this House or of the people throughout the country hardly know the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Who is he?


Lawrence Geoffrey Power: He is a member of the other Chamber.


Joseph Archambault: Mr. Blondin?


Lawrence Geoffrey Power: The hon. gentleman mentions a member of the other chamber who is not the Minister of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment. Had he been Minister of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment, there would, perhaps, have been a reason for his presence in the Cabinet as at any rate he was a soldier; he was at the front; but I maintain that such an important department as that of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment should certainly have a minister in this House.
In conclusion, in supporting the motion of the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre (Mr. Andrews), and in supporting the suggestion of the leader of the Government (Sir George Foster) I hope this committee will have some definite results. Let us divide it

the way we like, but let us have such results that we can say to the soldier: "At last, after all our promises, after telling you that we would do everything for you when you returned; that nothing was too good for the man who, shed his blood for us on the plains of Flanders, this is the concrete thing we are going to do for you; we promise you no more; we are going to do this; we will not put you off with more promises; this is what you have; either be satisfied with it or not, we cannot do any more; we find that impossible, our funds will not permit us to do any more; our willingness will not permit us to do any more; something will not permit us to do any more." At any rate let us be frank with the soldier, and tell him: "We will give you this, and we will give you nothing else, or we will not give you this," so that the soldier may know exactly where he stands and every one of them will be thankful to this Government and his representative if the soldier is ever placed into that happy position.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: I understand the hon. member's argument to be a condemnation of the work of the special committee of last year?


Lawrence Geoffrey Power: On the contrary, I must say that the work of the commitee of last year was very efficient, and that the work of the hon. gentleman himself was, perhaps, more efficient than that of some of the others.
Mr. DANIEL D. McKENZIE (Cape Breton North and Victoria): Mr. Speaker, this question is by no means a new one; we have been dealing with soldiers' re-establishment and soldiers' questions for some time. I am sure I need not tell the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre (Mr. Andrews) that I thoroughly agree with what he says about the deserving returned soldier; nor need I tell him that I agree with him as to the excellent work that was done and the bravery exhibited by our men overseas. We all concur in that. But I think the soldier, who patiently fought in the trenches and who was looking forward from day to day to the end of the war, had his patience pretty well exhausted in operations of that kind without being put to the extreme test of waiting until this Government would do something by way of relief. The war was tedious enough, but the tediousness of the war is not to be compared with the dilatoriness and the "tediosity," if there be such a word, of this Government. This institution, this very excellent Government,
who in turn put up one after another of their best speakers-and they have some good speakers-to praise themselves and to tell of the excellent things they have done and the excellent things they intend to do -had decided this question almost a year ago without obtaining any evidence. We had the exhibition in this House of the Minister of (Justice (Mr. Doherty) standing ,up in his place as the then 4 p.m. leader of the Government and saying that the Government had reached the conclusion that they were not going to do anything along those lines; that the financial condition of the country was such that they could not spepd another dollar, and the argument was that they had done as much or more than any other country and that they could not be expected to go any further along those lines. But if they had stood by that decision, we would have some respect and regard for them, and at all events, felt that they had reached a conclusion and they were prepared to stand by it and to let the people of this country pass judgment upon them as to whether or not they had done what was fair and reasonable in connection with the matter. But there was considerable agitation in the country amongst the returned soldiers, and reports were coming to the ears of the Government that their decision was not popular, and that the returned soldiers, when they had an opportunity, were likely to condemn by theh votes and influence the action of the Government in regard to dealing with their respective cases. A decision was reached in the Government that they would have to do something. That something was the appointment of another committee to inquire into the judgment that they had already passed. I am an old practising barrister, and we have in some courts in this province, at all events in my province, a provision by which a judge may review his own decision. My experience of some twentydive or thirty years is that I never came across any judge who would change a decision which he had already given; he always stood by it. That has been our experience with this Government. The evidence that was collected throughout the country was simply evidence to justify the decision that the Government had already reached. The chairman of that committee, a capable and astute politician, called to the witness stand such persons as would justify the attitude which the Government had taken in saying that the finances of this country were exhausted and that they would not stand any further
i

strain. The ex-Minister of Finance (Sir Thomas White), who is always a ready relief for this Government, was called into the witness box to say that he knew the finances of this country, and that not another dollar could be expended along the line suggested by the soldiers. As might be expected, the chairman of the committee and other friends of the 'Government, and other men who were not friends of the Government, brought in a report confirming the decision that had already been reached that nothing could be done. When that report was brought down, my honoured leader (Mr. Mackenzie King), moved an amendment in this House, after having heard arguments pro and con in respect to the report, and that amendment, as it appears on page 1892 of Hansard for the special session of last year, reads:
That the said motion or amendment be not concurred in, but that the said report now under consideration be sent back to the said committee for further consideration.
When the report of the committee was before the House a great many opinions were expressed by hon. members on both sides, but paiticularly on the Government side and it was suggested that certain means could h,e devised by which money could be raised for the purpose of relieving the soldiers. The hon. gentlemen who are to-day asking for further inquiry, by their votes on that occasion pronounced in a decided manner that no further investigation was necessary and that the report was good enough. We voted against the report on the ground that it was unsatisfactory and we said that one or two of the suggestions should be acted on and an effort-made to find some means by which the soldiers' needs could be met in a way that would be at least fairly satisfactory to these worthy men. It is somewhat surprising, Sir, that hon. gentlemen supporting the Government who were perfectly satisfied with the report and voted for it should to-day come hack and allege that it was unsatisfactory and inadequate and urge that something further should be done. It would be desirable to know when the end of this seemingly endless chain is going to be reached. One report after another is made. Hon. gentlemen opposite who are supporting the Government will vote for a committee and its report, which they will eulogize as being entirely satisfactory, and as soon as it is ascertained that' it is really inadequate and does not meet the requirements of the soldiers, they immediately stand up and ask for another committee and a further investigation. This, Mr. Speaker, is merely tem-

*porizing and offers no relief to the unfortunate soldiers. My good friend, the right hon. gentleman who leads the Government (Sir George Foster) will no doubt appreciate the fact that committees' reports, however beautifully expressed they may be, will not put meal into the pot, or keep it boiling for the poor children of the returned soldiers, who need money in order to obtain the very necessaries of life to support them through the hard times now prevailing in this country. Something tangible should be done. If it is necessary to provide help for the soldiers-and I believe it is-time is of supreme importance, and we should take action at once. Surely if we have had, from the inception of the department down to the present time, a competent minister at the head of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment, with facilities for obtaining ample information, he should know by this time what is necessary. The ministers are not overpaid, of course; but shall it be said that we are entrusting them with the control of departments of government, and furnishing them with every necessary staff and equipment, with every means of obtaining any information they may require, and, when anything is to be done, find that they know nothing about the subject with which they have to deal but must call for a committee of the House of Commons, who have never had anything particular to do with that subject, but iwhose duty it must be to inform the ministers upon matters peculiarly within the precincts of their departments? Yet, Sir, that is the condition of things, and I have no other conclusion to reach than that an effort is being made to postpone necessary action from time to time and give to the [DOT]soldiers camouflaged unreality in place of real help, throwing dust in their eyes in the hope of appeasing them. I do not think that anything more will come of this committee. Indeed, I do not believe that a *committee can be appointed which will be better than the last one, or whose report can be more exhaustive; and if the finances of the country could stand no strain last year, I venture to suggest to the present Minister of Finance (Sir Henry Drayton) that there is less likelihood now of their being able to do so. I observe that in the month of January, if I read the reports correctly, we plunged into an indebtedness of something like $64,000,000 over and above the income that ought to meet the demands upon the exchequer for that month; and I [DOT] presume that other months since we parted last November were not very much better. Under these circumstances is it proposed

that this n^w committee shall find money and devise means by which it is to be properly distributed for the re-establishment ol *soldiers? 1 submit that this motion is rather indefinite if we are to deal with any special subject. I do not want to find fault with the mover or seconder on that score, for I presume that if the motion is carried steps will be taken to specify more particularly what the subject matter of the inquiry will be. All that we are informed here is that the provisions so far made have proven inadequate.
We have no very great provisions except the Soldiers' Settlement Act, and when time will have developed what takes place under that Act and have fully shown the results, I fear it will be found that the provisions of that Act are unsatisfactory. I am told that the soldier who is put upon the land and to whom money is lent cannot call his soul *his own, and in no respect can he exercise his own judgment. The plough, the horse, [DOT]and the cow he gets is bought for him by emissaries of this Government who are capable of making any amount of graft as middlemen between the farmer and those from whom the articles are bought. They are charged to the farmer, who is supposed to pay for them, but evidently he has nothing to say about the price. The articles are not his; they are branded as Government property and the man has no credit or standing in the country. He has really nothing to say about the property, being as a matter of fact a ward of the Government, and in such a way that his own personality and initiative play no part in the start 'he has in life. I sincerely trust that these men who are re-established on the farms will make a success of their calling, but I think that provision should have been made for those who follow other occupations. When the Act was before the House I urged upon the minister in charge of it the desirability of having a general policy of settling the soldiers besides, establishing them on land. I said that it would not do to frame a policy applicable only to *men who desired to be farmers, but that consideration should be given to lumbermen, miners, fishermen, etc., who might he *anxious to pursue these occupations. The soldiers were drawn from different classes, and there certainly should have been established a general policy embracing men of every calling in life so that the soldiers of every vocation might have an opportunity to resume his work. The 'Government, however, thought proper to single out agriculture as the industry in which to re-establish the men, spending enormous sums of money
on the farms and paying no attention to * the other classes I have mentioned. The results is that we have not only discontented farmers, but discontented lumbermen, fishermen and others, and are experiencing a general dissatisfaction because nothing has been done for those who did not and could not undertake farming. I do not wish to be regarded as unfair to the Government. I know that a great many things have been done, such, for instance, as educating young men in different walks of life, and it would be unjust of me to say that nothing has been undertaken. It is evident from the general discontent from Vancouver to Scutari among the returned soldiers that what should reasonably have been done has not been done.
I voted for a further inquiry last year.
I thought the amendment of the leader of the Opposition should have 'been adopted by the Government and that further inquiry should have been made. For that reason, if there is a motion for the appointing of a committee, I am here to say that any further inquiry that may be necessary should be given. But I would suggest to the Government that a committee sitting in this House is not the best means of inquiring as to what is taking place in British Columbia, the Northwest, Winnipeg or the Maritime Provinces. Of course, we are sick and tired of roving commissions and we are sick and tired of ministers and departments who know nothing about their business. Nevertheless, if a thorough investigation is to be made-


George Green Foster: These general assertions are sometimes not very pleasant. Instead of including the whole Government among those who know nothing about their business the hon. gentleman should tell us who are the ones who do not know anything about their business. It would be interesting.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: We are dealing at present with one department-the Department of 'Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. One big committee undertook the task of gathering information for that department. We have a Government of twenty, or twenty-one, with mutual, governmental responsibility. Perhaps my light hon. friend (Sir George Foster), with his magnificent capacity for phrase making would say that he represents the soul responsibility of the ministers. If there is one man among them who does not seem to comprehend the responsibilities of his office, the duty devolves upon the other twenty, or twenty-one, as



T

'
* the case may be, of trying to penetrate the cranium and of imparting to him some of their surplus knowledge.


George Green Foster: You are going
along well.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Last year the right
hon. gentleman who 'leads the Government was asked to tell us how many ministers there were. He said, " Let it stand as an order for a return." He could not tell how many there were. This will be one of the Orders that we will ask the minister to bring down at the earliest convenience. So many have left the Cabinet since that the list will not be such a long one. I am far from saying that every one, or that any one in particular, is dull, stupid or' incompetent. I will leave that for the country to decide. But we are dealing with a department now in which it seems a hopeless iob to get anything done in a proper or practical way. If the dullness is impenetrable and if it is not possible to get any action out of that department, not' only is the department itself responsible but the rest of the Government are equally so because there is a mutual responsibility. That responsibility devolves particularly on the right hon. gentleman who leads the Government and who is responsible not only for the department over which he presides himself but for every other department over which he indirectly presides because he leads the Government. I charge them all with incapacity. They all know about it and their friends all over the country have reached the conclusion that the harvest is past, that the summer is ended and that this Government cannot be saved.
I wish to reiterate what I said before that there has been too much delay, too much putting off, too much dilly-dallying with this important question and if the soldiers, their wives, and dependents, are to get any relief from any action of this Government, it should be quick, as direct and as expeditious as possible. No hon. member of this House should be a party to any further delay in dealing as effectively as we can with the many questions connected with the soldier with which we have to deal. I understand that a motion is soon to be made that the debate be adjourned which, I presume, means that the further discussion of this matter is pitched over the fence and into the graveyard and that it will stay there perhaps till resurrection dawns. I hope however that such will not be the case and that some definite action will be taken by the Government.
rilr. McKenzie.]


Mr. E. W. NESBITT (Noith Oxford):: Mr. Speaker, I understood my hon. friend who has just taken his seat (Mr. McKenzie) to say that Mr. Calder who was the Chairman of the Committee that was appointed last year to look into Soldiers' Reestablishment ruled out any evidence that did not tend to bear out what he, Mr. Calder-


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: What he, the hon. Minister of Immigration and Colonization (Mr. Calder) did not want introduced. I understood my hon. friend to say that the Minister of Immigration and Colonization entirely ruled the actions of the committee and that he absolutely kept out any evidence-


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I did not say anything like that. I said nothing of the kind.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Then my understanding
must be getting bad.


George Green Foster: May I ask the
hon. gentleman (Mr. McKenzie) a question?


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. member for
Cape Breton North (Mr. McKenzie) has not the floor; the hon. member for North Oxford (Mr. Nesbitt) has the floor.


George Green Foster: The hon. member (Mr. McKenzie) still has his voice.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I thoroughly understood,,
my hon. frend (Mr. McKenzie) to say that. In any event he insinuated that and he insinuated that the Government had a plan that they would not go beyond a certain amount for the returned soldier and that the committee was selected for the purpose of working out that plan.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: Yes, I said that.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: And that the Minister of Immigration and Colonization was put at the head of the committee so as to keep the committee in control and so that no evidence would be brought out that was not in accordance with the plan.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I did not say that.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Well, my hon. friend insinuated that and sometimes insinuations are as dangerous as plain statements and even worse. I would like to ask my hon. ' friend if he attended any of the sittings of the committee.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: No.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: Well then I think that
for a man of his age it is very unfair to criticize the work of a committee whose sittings he did not attend. I think it is not only unfair but it is absolutely mean.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order. I do not think the hon. member intended to convey the impression that he did by using the word " mean " in respect to the remarks of toe hon. member for Cape Breton North. I would ask him to withdraw that expression.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I do so with pleasure
and I will leave' it at " unfair."


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: I must rise to a question of privilege. I said nothing whatever about ik.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: It is not proper for an hon. member to arise to a question of privilege while another member has the floor.


Edward Walter Nesbitt: I am. very pleased to hear that my hon. friend did not say anything against the icommittee, but for fear he should have any suspicion in the back of his head that the committee were not absolutely independent I will refer him to those members of the committee who sit on his own side. There are the member for Lambton (Mr. Pardee), the member for North Essex (Mr. Kennedy), the member for Lunenburg (Mr. Duff), I think-[DOT]


William Duff: I rise to a point of order.
Mr, NESBITT: Pardon me, the member for Westmorland (Mr. Copp), the member for Beauce (Mr. Beland) iand several other hon. gentlemen. I sat with those hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House for several years and I know them to be very competent and very upright. The Chairman of the, committee never personally, to my knowledge, asked for any particular evidence to- be submitted to the committee. Various organizations asked to be heard and the chairman put it to the committee whether their request should be granted or not. It was seldom that any 1 evidence was objected to or ruled out excepting rwhen it was proffered ;by organizations connected with the Great War Veterans, and then the committee asked that their evidence might be submitted through that body. I am sure that no committee composed of members of this House ever tried more strenuously to do their duty or attended more closely to that duty than did the committee on the Soldiers' Civil Re-esabli-shment. They sat three times a day for over a month, they listened to t-e-sti-34 *
mony from witnesses from districts ranging from Vancouver to Ha'if ax -and they paid the closest possible attention to that evidence. But they had to take into- consideration 'the interests and financial condition of the -country a,s well as the interests *of the returned -soldier. No man, not excepting -even my hon. friend from North Cape Breton and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie) could have listened with greater attention to the evidence that was submitted than did the Minister of Immigration and Colonization, and no human being could have given that evidence greater attention than be did, or could have allowed, no matter what exertion he put forth, more evidence to be brought forward unless the committee had sat all last fall in order to listen to it. I repeat that no one could have allowed more evidence or greater latitude or opportunity for evidence to be given, than did the minister -in question. I rose for the purpose of resenting any insinuation that the committee were governed or ruled in -any shape, manner or form by the Government or any -member of it, or that the judgment of the committee was influenced in any manner whatsoever by the Government or any person representing the Government-. Personally I re-sent any insinuation that I was influenced or dominated by anybody it does not matter by whom. The only -authority that has any influence over me in my judgment of any -case that comes before me to be judged- and that influence is directed so that I do not know it-is the Lord. So that I naturally resent any person insinuating that I was elected a member of the committee because it was desired that a certain verdict would be given. The same thing is true of every member of the committee in my humble opinion. Remember that the report of the committee was unanimous; I do not believe that any of the Opposition members on 'the committee who were my strong personal friends were influenced in any degree whatever by any human being; they were influenced -solely by the desire t-o do justice to the returned soldiers as near.as it /was humanly possible to do so.
As to the Land Settlement Board we were not appointed to consider anything with respect to their operations. It did -so happen that we had to secure -some evidence with -respect to the hoard in order to find out what was being done in the re-establishment of the soldier. Now if there is anything wrong in connection with the Land Settlement Board-judging from my experience prior to and since the sittings of the committee-the errors are all on the



side of the soldier and not on the side of the country. The Land Settlement Board is managed with good judgment-the very best judgment I think that could be brought to bear in connection with it- but the proposition is a very difficult one. I listened with a great deal of interest this afternoon to the observations of an hon. gentleman opposite who had been working on the Land Settlement Board in New Brunswick for the reason that the hon. gentleman in question has had experience of, and is familiar with, the question. There is a good deal to be said from his standpoint, but there is also much to be said in opposition to it. It is one of those questions that a committee could sit down quietly and thresh out when the views of the majority of course would prevail.
Just a word about the Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. I have had more or less experience in connection with that work, especially since the meetings of the Parliamentary Committee and it is because of that experience that I say that any errors arising in connection with that work have always been in favour of the soldier. And errors are almost impossible to avoid. Not even a man endowed with the wisdom of Solomon could entirely avoid imposition in connection with the. work of the Soldier Settlement Board, and the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment and especially the Vocational 'Training BrancH. Even if everything was done that it was humanly possible 'to do I do not think we could escape from imposition, and as I say, any errors that have resulted, according to my experience, have always been in favour of the soldier. It is hardly possible for these departments to escape being imposed upon to a certain extent. I have tried to work out some scheme under which imposition would not occur but it seems to be hopelessly impossible to avoid it altogether.
As to the resolution under discussion it is possible that there are certain things in connection with the re-establishment of the soldier that 'have not yet been investigated. The same may be true with respect to the provision made for the soldiers' dependents. Still while a good many questions have been investigated, I see no reason why, as the leader of the Government pointed out a few minutes ago, a committee could not be* appointed to investigate certain questions relating to the returned soldier that have no\ yet been inquired into and to suggest any remedies where remedies are found to be necessary. Personally I would think that as there

is a motion on the Order Paper for the re-lai.tpo'intment of a committee to inquire into the working of the Pensions Aot, perhaps any other question relating to the returned soldier that has not already been* investigated might be referred to that committee.
During the present session I have listened to several debates dealing more or less with this question, and several hon. members have stated circumstances that seemed very harsh, I did not hear all that was said about pensions this afternoon, but I do know that when the Pensions Committee sat for three years-and I happened to be a member of it from its organization-we inquired into a great many complaints, and I think I can say, without the slightest exaggeration, that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the committee found the Pensions Board were right. I remember only two instances in those three years where we found the Pensions Board were not correct in their findings in the judgment of the committee; and it must be borne in mind that that committee was composed of members of the House of Commons, whose inclination was, if anything, towards the-complainants.
A great many of these cases appear very hard while you have .heard only one side, but no one knows better than a lawyer that when you eome to hear the other side they may assume a very different aspect. I do not think that complaints-against either the S.'C.R. or the Pensions Board should be aired here by individual members unless they have been inquired into by them personally. I said the other day that after I had inquired into any complaints brought to my notice, if they were within the regulations of the Pensions Act and were capable of adjustment by the Pensions Board, they were immediately adjusted. I can only repeat that statement. Hon. members must bear in mind that the committee of the S.'C.R. and the Pensions Board are governed not by their own ideas but by the provisions of the Statutes controlling them. It would be a fatal thing for those two bodies to act according to their personal inclination, because then we would immediately have complaints of favoritism, and that would be the worst thing that could possibly happen.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I would not have taken any part in this debate-in fact, I had no intention of doing so-had not my hon. friend (Mr. McKenzie) insinuated that the committee-and, by the way, I have seen this stated in the papers before to-

day-that the committee had been handpicked as to some of its members, who were appointed purposely to carry out the will of the Government. I rose to give that statement the most emphatic denial. I see on the other side of the House two or three of my brother committeemen and I leave it to them to say whether any influence was brought to bear to shut out any evidence that should have come before the Committee.


Mr. O. TURGEON (Gloucester):: Mr. Speaker, I wish first to congratulate the hon. member for Winnipeg (Mr. Andrews) on the eloquent manner in which he has placed his request before the House, and, secondly, I wrish to state that I shall give my support to the resolution, hoping, as has already been stated by my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Sir George Foster), that a committee will be given an opportunity of further studying this question.
I do not rise for the purpose of criticising the report of the old committee. The amendment which my hon. friend the leader of the Opposition brought in at the end of last session was that with the further light and knowledge furnished to the House during the discussion the report should be referred to the same committee for further consideration.. Therefore that amendment was not a condemnation of the report or of the personnel of the committee. In speaking briefly on the subject at the time I declared myself favourable to a gratuity- not to the extent which had been asked for before the committee, involving an expenditure of perhaps $800,000,000, but to an extent scarcely reaching twenty or twenty-five per cent of that amount. It is true that at that time the leader of the Government to-day as well as the hon. Minister of the Interior declared to the House and to the country that we were not in a position to grant any further money to the returned soldiers. However, the next day the Government came down with a proposition to acquire the Grand Trunk Railway system, and they did acquire it, and laid on the country an immense amount of further indebtedness. Now my hon. friend the Minister of the Interior having been able to gratify his ambition in that respect, I am sure that his ingenuity is not exhausted, and that he will be able to find the means necessary to give our returned soldiers what they really deserve and what to a great extent they have a right to expect, from the country.	!	1
34J	.
At that time in seconding the resolution of my hon: friend from Winnipeg I had different considerations in view. I felt that the most needy soldier is generally the most humble, and will not go before a committee to receive charity. I know hundreds oi cases in my constituency, Mr. Speaker,- and when I say hundreds of cases, do not think for a moment that I am exaggerating-I repeat, I know hundreds of cases oi returned soldiers suffering in many ways, A returned soldier not able to suit himself according to his ambition will not apply for charity because perhaps he has a brother who will give him a home, or he may be able to go to his paternal home, although-filled with other children. But that is the very soldier who requires the attention of the country. The only fair way is to give something to every soldier. I may be answered that to grant such a gratuity to a great many will be an invitation to waste. 400,000 soldiers are to-day still waiting for re-establishment of the 600,000 who went overseas. The soldier is human, just like any other man, and no doubt a few might waste the money that they got from the country. But the majority of them are sensible men and will re-establish themselves not only with a view to enjoying life, but also with a view to proving the value of their citizenship after the winning of the war.
I represent a lumbering, farming and fishing constituency. I know of a number of cases'of returned men in my constituency who are without the means of following their occupation of fishing. It may be said that $400 or $500 would not be sufficient to-enable a returned man who wanted to engage in the fishing business to buy a sailing vessel or motor boat. That is true, but if he is willing to invest the $400 or $500 in the construction or purchase of a 'sailing vessel or motor boat, some one may easily be found in the locality who will be-willing to trust him with the balance. There might be a tendency not to advance the man the whole amount necessary to establish him in business, because of an apprehension that he might not, having put no money into it himself, be sufficiently industrious and energetic to carry it out successfully. But having invested $400 or $500, he gives a guarantee of his good faith and some person of means in the locality would surely be willing to help him out.
Then, there is'the case of the students. Many young men who vrere on the point of leaving college and entering university went to the wrar and upon their return they

have tried to get the means to attend university. We will say that it would take two or three thousand dollars to put a man through university. Well, if you gave him $400 or $500 he would be enabled to carry on his studies for a certain length of time, and a doctor or a lawyer or other good neighbour in his district would undoubtedly be willing to furnish the means necessary to enable the young man to finish his course, although he might not have been willing to run the risk of advancing the cost of the whole course. I hope, therefore, that the leader of the Government, whose generosity seems to increase year by year since he has acquired a good knowledge of the French language and an appreciation of the sentiment of those who speak it, will, in cooperation with the Minister of the Interior (Hon. Mr. Meighen) be able to arrange for a committee to look into this matter.
Canada is not bankrupt; Canada can assist her returned soldiers as generously as other countries assist theirs. In fact, Canada has done better for her soldiers than any other country has done. But the Canadian soldiers won a lasting name in the battlefields overseas; his name is of universal repute. When we boast of what the Government or the country has done in relation to the war we must remember that it is the Canadian soldier who did it. It was the Canadian soldiers who saved the Empire at the very beginning of the war; by their courage in maintaining the line until reinforcements came they kept the Germans from breaking through and reaching the sea through France and Belgium. So that I hope that a committee will be appointed which will consider the matter from every angle with a view to doing something to allay the disquiet which prevails throughout the country, particularly on the part of returned soldiers, and to provide generously for the re-establishment of these men into civil life so that they may be enabled to exercise their citizenship in accordance with the true British spirit.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Mr. Speaker, I invite the attention of the House to the wording of the resolution proposed by the member for Winnipeg Centre (Mr. Andrews). It reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, the provision made for re-establishing in civil life the members of His Majesty's forces who served in the late war has in many cases proved inadequate, and that it is desirable that a special committee of this House be appointed to consider what provision can be made to meet such cases.
TMr. Turgeon.]
And so on. It will be noted that the first statement in the resolution is that the provision hitherto made for re-establishment of our returned soldiers has proved inadequate. I think we ought to be careful not io allow the impression to go abroad that here is real ground for the contention made by some that the country has grossly neglected the returned soldier. 'Generally speaking, and holding in reserve for the moment special cases to which I shall refer later, I think that Canada has succeeded beyond the hopes of the most optimistic in solving the general problem of re-establishment. Or, to put it in another way, a very large proportion of the returned men are to-day happily reinstated in civil life. In saying that I do not for a moment wish to throw out the inference that the country has discharged its debt of gratitude and otherwise to the returned soldier. That is a debt which we shall never be able to repay, but it is a debt which comparatively few of the men themselves desire to have capitalized in the form of dollars and cents. But that does not alter the fact that I have already mentioned, namely, that in the main the great problem of re-establishment has been most intelligently and fairly successfully dealt with. I am conscious, however, that there are some cases-some classes, if you will-that have not, in my estimation, and I think in the estimation of a large number of the people, been properly dealt with. Indeed, Sir, the right hon. leader of the House (Sir George Foster) this afternoon expressed sentiments which lead me to believe that he himself concurs in that view. I suggest, therefore, that the member for Winnipeg Centre has, perhaps, made the wording of his resolution a little loose, because he generalizes in saying that the re-establishment scheme has proved inadequate and he make's no specific statement of the cases which he desires should go before the committee. Such a committee, appointed under this resolution, would have the whole field to travel over again, d submit that it is inadvisable for this Parliament to appoint another commitee which, .by inviting from different parts of the country witnesses and others who desire to present schemes and cases, will traverse again the wide field which was gone over with such care and in such detail last autumn. I would, however, prefer that either the Government itself by a Cabinet committee, or the House by a special committee, deal in some effective manner with specific cases, some of which I shall present to the House this afternoon, which should be

considered. It is a matter of gratitude to me to note that the President of the Council (Mr. Rowell) assured the House that the Pension Committee would take up the matter of pensions. I desire, however, to take this opportunity-as it comes within the purview of this resolution-to refer very briefly to pensions. I am going to give the House two illustrations indicating a principle of administration of the Pension Board, which I desire to characterize here as, in my estimation, iniquitous, to put it mildly. It is a principle indicated by the two cases I shall submit to the House. Five boys of one family went overseas, and three of those boys were killed in. France. The mother was an elderly woman who had married again, so that there .was a step-father. Both of those people were too old to keep themselves, and they were dependent upon those boys for a living. When the three boys were killed, the Pension Board granted a pension of $48 a month to the step-father and the mother. This pension was gratefully received and no complaint was made, they being apparently satisfied with the amount. But this old couple, desirous of reducing the cost of their living, removed from the environs of the city to a place about ten miles outside, secured a small piece of land and built a cottage on it, thereby eliminating rent and raising in their garden some of the sustenance of life. As soon as the Pension iBo^trd learned that this couple had attempted to supplement their meagre pension in this way, they reduced the pension by ten dollars a month on the ground that the couple now had to pay no rent. Can you, Mr. Speaker, and ,hon. members, imagine a more iniquitous practice than that? I give you one other case, and these two are indicative of many more. An elderly lady, a widow, lost her only boy overseas. 'She owned in Vancouver a house which was heavily mortgaged. She received a pension, I think, of $48 a month; it may have been a little more, but it was the ordinary regular pension, with which she was satisfied. In the rear of her lot she had a small building, and she spent $70 in fitting this building up, making it habitable, and she rented it for $15 a month, thus supplementing the meagre pension she was receiving and assisting her to carry on in this life. The Pension Board again seized upon that and reduced her pension by $15 a month, the amount of the pittance she received from this shack in the rear of her lot. Not only did they do that, but they totally ignored the fact that the woman had spent almost a hundred
dollars in fitting up the building. These two cases are sufficient indication of a pernicious regulation being practiced constantly by the Pension Board, and it is such irritating and, 1 consider, utterly unneeded practices as this that cause a great deal of dissatisfaction. I give these illustrations to the House so that we may address ourselves to remedying regulations which are, on the face of them, wrong, unfair, unjust and, as I say, iniquitous, im this case.
I proceed to another phase of the question. I shall not discuss pensions further, because they will go before another committee. We have the claim of the student. I shall not traverse the ground gone over last year in this regard, but the student undoubtedly has a peculiar claim upon this country. This country above all others, and, indeed, in common with the leading countries of the world, realizes that a fair education is a great asset to the community. Indeed, in most of our provinces, we have a law of compulsory education, and why? Simply because we know that a man who has a fair education is a better asset to the country than a man without any education at all. The bulk of these students, particularly in the universities, stopped in the middle of their course and gave their services to the country. Having been for the time being dissociated from their studies, when they come back they find themselves somewhat handicapped, and they are asking that some 'consideration shall be given to them. The only objection to the proposal hitherto has been that it will interfere with other classes; or in other words, there will be other classes of returned soldiers which would claim the same privilege. I at once admit that there is an argument in this; that it is possible that it would cause the Government or the administration having charge of the matter some difficulties and confusion. But if' we are going, as a Parliament, to refuse to do what is eminently just and in the interest of the country simply because it presents difficulties, then we are derelict in our duty to the country, and the sooner Parliament recognizes that it is by adjusting these individual cases that we shall make progress towards social and industrial peace, the better for the country at large. Therefore, I believe the case of the student whose studies were interrupted by the war, is a case worthy of special consideration, irrespective of its relation to other individual cases.
I pass on to another case to which I wish to refer with the utmost brevity, and that

-is the vocational training group, the men 'who are taking vocational training. This is not a criticism of the government; but -as we progress in this hitherto untravelled field, we learn things that we ought, if we are wise, to take advantage of in order to effect remedies. In this particular realm, v it has been discovered that a man will start
*	a course as a bookkeeper, or as a mechanic, [DOT]*or in the motor transport, or as a carpenter, or in some other vocation. He may go on for two or three weeks or a couple of months, and it may be perfectly clear to those in charge that the individual is in the wrong vocation; that he is going to make an utter failure of it; that if we train him for three or six months as the case may be and turn him out, he will be useless and not, in any sense, a credit to the training he has received. It is the .function of Parliament, the duty of the Government and of the department con-[DOT].cerned to formulate such regulations that, when or if it is discovered that a man is .pursuing a course which it is clear he will fail in, he may he changed over to some other course where he may have an opportunity of making a success. That is a real, tangible grievance that should have the consideration of Parliament and of the Gov-
*	ernment.
A good deal has been said regarding the Hand Settlement Board, and I wish to take -this opportunity of paying a tribute to that Board. I am not going to analyze its work in detail, because I have not had an opportunity of studying it very closely; but I have criticised it, as I think, in a constructive manner where I felt I was warranted in doing so. But I must confess to this, that as far and as impartially as I can judge, the Land 'Settlement Board is doing -excellent work in 'Canada. It is administered by a man at the head, Mr. Black, I believe, who is not only doing his best tout enthusiastically devoted to the work. .I do not think a more capable man could foe chosen. What I suggest to hon. members is that we should rather refrain from careless and general criticisms of the Land Settlement Board and seek to point out any specific weakness and take it up directly 'with that Board, or through the Government or, if a committee be appointed, through such a committee. But the point I wish to emphasize is this, that rather than make general and sweeping criticisms, we should particularize and seek to bring out some useful criticism which may offer .an opportunity of a remedy being effected.
.{Mr. Stevens. 1
I wish to say to the hon. member for North Cape Breton and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie) that I take second place to no man in this House in respect for liis experience in Parliament, but I was seriously disappointed at the attack which he made upon the Government. He, if I remember rightly-and I am subject to correction if I am in error-said that the people were sick and tired of Royal Commissions and that a committee of this House would be useless because it could not understand conditions in British Columbia or the Prairies or the Maritime Provinces. Well, Sir, what in the name of common sense do we want? What justification is there for these sweeping condemnations of the Government? This is an entirely new problem, a new field that has never been trodden before. We are the pioneers in this field, other countries having patterned their vocational training and re-establishment much after the' original steps taken by this Government and this Parliament. 'I say, therefore, that rather than genera] criticisms, rather than sweeping condemnations of the Government, rather than feeding the fires of discontent in this country, the duty we owe to the people, to the returned soldier in particular, and to ourselves, is that, when we bring before Parliament a resolution of this kind, we should attempt to state as specifically as possible what grievance it. is that we are desirous to remedy.
So far as I am concerned, I do not feel that I am at all in duty bound to support the resolution in its present general terms, but I do bring to Parliament, as I have already said, such specific instances as have been laid before me in order to invite attention and correction, although not subscribing in any sense to a general condemnation of the work that has been undertaken, without knowledge or experience, and carried forward, as I believe, with a larger measure of success than has attended any similar work of such gigantic proportions.
Mr. G. B. NICHOLSON (East Algoma);
I desire to say a word or two on the subject that has been introduced by the hon. member for Winnipeg (Mr. Andrews). While I agree that it is desirable that Parliament should make further investigation of all the conditions surrounding the problem of re-establishing the returned soldiers in civil life, I do not by any means concur in the statements that have been made to the effect that the work done by the several departments of government which have been dealing with the re-establishment of our men has been inefficient or insincere,

money as can be earned by a man of this ripe age. He is not in the most robust state of health, and although he and his wife live in their own home, they, are not in a position substantially to augment their pension of $48. Now, because this man of seventy-five was fortunate enough to secure some light employment during the months of August, September and October last in order that he might earn a meagre pittance, the Pensions Board, after sending an inspector to investigate his case, reduced his pension by half, so that he now receives only $24. One of the reasons adduced for this action is the fact that these people are living in their own home, and do not have to pay-fifteen or twenty dollars a month rent. The other case is that of a widow who lost her only son in Prance, but who has at home three daughters who are domestics.
The Pension Board takes the ground that because these three girls, who are working out as domestics, are in receipt of an income, the mother should not get any pension at all. There is something wrong with regulations that will call upon a board representing the Government and Parliament of Canada to say that because a widowed mother who lost a boy in France has three daughters working out as domestics she is not entitled to some compensation on account of the loss of her son. I say, as I said to the Pension Board, surely these three girls are _ doing all they should be asked to do when they maintain themselves.
In regard to the Department of Soldiers Civil Re-establishment and the criticisms that have been levelled against it, I am not here to defend any department particularly but I must say in justice to that department that having had a number of cases of returned men to deal with in my own .district and having been asked by these men to intercede for them, I have never received more sympathetic consideration from any department of Government, nor has any one ever gone further than the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment has gone in every case that has been brought before them. My judgment is that if there is anything wrong with what they are doing, or if their work is not adequate, it is because the machinery has not been made adequate and the responsibility rests upon the House of Commons to see that it is. Therefore, the suggestion made by the right hon. the Acting Prime Minister (Sir George Foster) that a committee is to be appointed meets with my absolute approval.
In so far as a cash gratuity to physically fit returned men is concerned I want to
[Mr. Nicholson. 1
make myself absolutely clear to this House as I have to the branches of the Great War Veterans' Association in my own district. I have said to them, and I say to this House, that the responsibility of the country to the disabled men, those who are not fit to go back into civil life or to the same positions that they occupied before they went overseas, and our responsibility to the dependents of the men who fell, will never be properly discharged until we have gone to the limit of the country's resources. I submit that if we dissipate a large part of the country's resources in providing a further cash amount to physically fit men we will be thereby rendering ourselves less able to take care of the physically unfit and the dependents of those who fell. It is not because we would not like to do it. I do not believe there is a man on either side of the House but who would give his last nickel to a returned soldier who needed it. It is not because /Canada does not want to do it but because there is a limit to the resources of the country, and it will tax these resources to the very limit if we take proper care of the widows and orphans of the men who fell and of the men who have come back physically unfit.
I agree heartily with the spirit of the resolution moved by the hon. member for Centre Winnipeg (Mr. Andrews) and with the spirit of the statement made by the Acting Prime Minister (Sir George Foster).
I think there should be a committee. My wish would be that the same committee which did such splendid work last year might take hold of the subject again and give the House and the country the benefit of their judgment, as -to the best means of discharging our responsibility to the returned men.


Mr. W. A. BUCHANAN (Lethbridge):: Mr. Speaker, when the re-establishment question was before the House last year I did not enter into, the discussion, but I favoured the appointment of a committee. When that Committee brought down a unanimous report I supported its recommendations. I think I can say that I have a mind of my own but at the same time when representative men from bo-th sides sat in committee afternoon, night and sometimes into the morning, men who had served in the trenches, men who have given their sons in the war, men who were acknowledged to possess sound business capacity, and men coming from both political parties,
I felt that I would require some very sound reason before I differed from their recommendations.

If this country could afford it I would like to see divided among the returned soldiers the $200,000,000 that was asked for. But it is impossible to do that. I accepted the report of the committee last year, and I went back home and defended my course. It was not a popular course to defend. 1 was often faced with criticism even by the reasonable men amongst the returned soldiers. When I told them that the committee said it was impossible for Canada to finance some of the schemes that were proposed and that we had to economize on account of the great obligations incurred through the war, they came back at me with statements to the effect that the Government was extravagant, that it was wasting money, that the Department of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment was overmanned and that there was unnecessary expense in connection with it. They had me floored because I was not familiar with the facts in regard to the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. If, as the Government claims, the country cannot afford to expend this money, it should be the business of Parliament to see that this Government is not wasting any money. I am not saying that the charge against the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment is correct; all I am saying is that the charge was made. We should see that all these institutions controlling the affairs of the returned soldiers are manned sufficiently and economically so that we can convince the returned men that the attitude we are taking in this Parliament is'backed up by actual facts.
There are cases, such as have been mentioned on the floor of the House to-day in which pensions should be provided for at this session of Parliament. I have one complaint to offer to the House and it comes from a great many of the returned men. It is in connection with housing. They have come back from overseas and they are unable to find homes to live in. They cannot avail themselves of any housing scheme in Alberta at any rate. If this Government in some way could help the returned' men to acquire homes of- their own, not by gift but by loan, they would remove a great deal of the criticism that exists.
Again, the suggestion was made last year 

and I think it was left open for consideration-that loans should be extended beyond disabled men. I know it is impossible to grant a loaii to every man who asks for it but it should be possible to consider the merits of a man just as a loan company or
a bank considers them. We should assist such a man in that way provided we were satisfied that he was a gilt edged proposition and would use the money to the advantage of himself and the community in which he lived and, in due course, pay it back. If a loan scheme along this line were adopted I think it would meet the demands of the reasonable men amongst the returned soldiers. We cannot satisfy the extremists in any movement. Even if we can satisfy one reasonable man by a proposal of this kind we should try and do so in any further consideration of the case of the returned men.
I have no objection to the appointment of a Committee to consider further problems in connection with re-establishment provided it deals with the necessities of the moment and deals with questions that it is possible for the country to solve. I am convinced that it is impossible to satisfy the demands of those who are asking from this country more than it is possible for the country to raise. We should be frank and honest enough to say that. But we should attempt to deal with all the reasonable demands which are made and try and solve the question so that we can get rid, if it be possible, of the returned soldier problem, get rid of it for our own satisfaction and get rid of it so that the returned men, or the bulk of the reasonable men amongst the returned soldiers, may be satisfied.


Mr. WILLIAM GARLAND McQUARRIE (iNew Westminster):: I also would like to say a few words on this resolution. Like the prevoius speaker I understood when I voted for the* adoption of the report of the committee last session that the door would be left open for further discussion of the question of the re-establishment of the returned soldier. There are some matters which I think should be dealt with by any committee which is to be appointed and I hope the committee will be the same as the committee that acted last session. That committee, in my opinion, did excellent work, and there is no reason why they should not be asked to continue their labours and they will have the advantage of the opinions that have been expressed here to-day. I agree with the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Stevens) that some assistance should be given to university students. These are mostly youths who went overseas from the courses which they were taking. They are now unable, or perhaps some of them are unwilling, to continue their courses because of the years
5.38

they have spent in service to their country. Now it seems to me that it is in the interest of Canada that these young men should be assisted to continue their courses in the university, and I hope that some means will be found to help them to do so. We must also consider the case of those just over the age of eighteen years who enlisted and served many years in the war and who now find that because they were over eighteen they are not entitled to the assistance which is being given to boys under that age. I think that age limit could very well be increased to twenty-one years, and I hope the committee will take this matter into consideration.
I was pleased to hear from the Acting Prime Minister that the Government was considering bringing in a Bill to cover the question of insurance and I support the stand which the Government is taking in that connection. I believe that a man who was physically fit when he went overseas but who finds himself unable to get insurance when he returns to Canada, should be looked after.
Then there is the question of'better pensions. I believe that the pensions should be increased in amount in a great many cases, and also that the scope of the pensions granted should be enlarged. We have heard to-day of many cases of mothers and wives who should in all justice be entitled to pensions but cannot receive them because of the existing regulations, or because of the law as it stands at the present time.
I do not agree in any way with the criticisms that have been directed against the minister in charge of th^ Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. I have found that minister courteous at all times and invariably willing whenever I have had occasion to speak to him, to do what he could. But in a great many of these cases I have been met with the reply that although the minister thinks they are deserving of consideration, unfortunately owing to the regulations that are in force he can do nothing.
Another matter I would like to refer to is that of the Emergency Fund which was provided for last year. We all know that the returned men did not take advantage of that fund as we expected they would. The reason for that was that they considered it as a dole or a charity and they do not want charity-they want work. What I want to suggest is that the Government should consider opening up public works so as to give the men who are willing to work the opportunity of doing so. 1 do not believe
IMr. McQuarrie. ]
in extravagant expenditures but I do believe that instead of handing out a charity dole this Government should provide work for men who are willing to do it, and in my opinion the great majority of the returned men are willing to work if that work is given to them. I know in my constituency there are a lot of men who are not saying anything, who are not making any complaints, but who are, and have been, unable to obtain employment. 'I hope the Government will give that matter serious consideration. I would like to go further than some hon. gentlemen have done. I would suggest to the committee that is about to be appointed the advisability of considering the granting of some assistance to those who need it if work cannot be given them, I am like all the hon. gentlemen who have spoken here to-day in that I believe first consideration should be given to the disabled men and to the dependents of those gallant fellows who gave up their lives overseas. At the same time I think there are those not classed as disabled men who are entitled to some consideration, and I would impress upon the committee that they should endeavour perhaps to go further in the direction of granting assistance to these men than has yet been attempted.


Mr. E. B. DEVLIN (Wright):: I shall not detain the House at any length in speaking to the resolution under consideration. Let me begin by saying that I am a man of peace and not a man of war. I am not disposed to pay compliments to hon. gentlemen opposite because of the advice of a very old politician who once told me that it was a bad practice to compliment the other man for he would not believe you anyway. However, if such a thing were at all permissable! to one who is so much younger I would like to say that in listening to the words of the leader of the Government-when he spoke with all the earnestness that he possesses upon this subject and said that he was doing his best -I did feel he meant every word he said. After a long life given by the right hon. gentleman to the public service of the country in all the departments he was called to administer I feel that his administration of those departments has been characterized by that thrift which, I am sure, every citizen in this country will recognize.	<
A complaint was made as to the work of the committees of the House. I was a member of the first committee formed to

deal with the subject of pensions, and jl want to say that hon. members on both sides gave to the work of that committee the best that was in them in their endeavour to do full justice by the men who had fought for a righteous cause, while not forgetting that the Administration was the custodian of the taxes of the people. That committee was presided over by the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Rowell), and occupied a great deal of the members' time, sitting morning, afternoon and evening for weeks, and they only knew what was happening in this Chamber through their perusal of Hansard or the public press. I must confess that last year when asked to again sit upon the committee I did not feel that I could give to the subject all the time that it deserved, and I sympathize with the men who did act, because I know they were intent on doing their duty between the soldier boys and the taxpayers.
I have heard complaints made about the pensions granted. Yes, those pensions might be higher. They were granted after careful study by that committee and were based upon the Workmen's Compensation Acts of various countries and upon the experience of those countries which had pension lists. It was a new incident in this country's history. We had been through a war more gigantic than has ever been seen before in the history of the world. That there should be things lacking I can conceive to be possible, and that those omissions should be remedied I conceive to be a proper stand for the soldiers to take.
I also 'feel, Sir, that the Soldiers' Committee, the Pensions Committee and the other committee formed to deal with the claims of soldiers have reported sufficiently to this House to have the Administration assume to-day the full responsibility of carrying out the recommendations of those committees-improving upon them where improvement is possible, and rectifying any faults that have become apparent- and I think hon. gentlemen to-day who spoke upon this subject from both sides of the House should direct all their energies towards making the Government feel their responsibility in the matter. It should not be shelved on to committees again; the Government is now fully seized of the matter and should be prepared to act.
There was a time, Sir, before the war was over and before demobilization began when we were told that the Government was well advanced in the development of a scheme by which the returned men would
find all that was coming to them on their return home. That time has arrived, and our returned men who fought so bravely and were wounded deserve everything that is coming to them-not alone from the Government but from Parliament.
Mr. Speaker, I have heard it stated by some hon. members that the returned men have not been able to obtain employment-
I have heard that complaint on the street, in my office, in my home, on trains, and I have read it in the press. I am not in favour of turning out all civilians in the Government service and putting returned soldiers in their places. I believe, Sir, in the Civil Service being the most efficient that we can have. I believe in the soldier having a fair share in the public service. But what I do believe in more, Sir, is that the widow, the dependent, the student and the other classes who require immediate aid should be granted that aid.
Now, as to such part of the resolution as bea'rs upon what I have said, I am prepared to support it. But I am not prepared to go to the extent of saying that the provision made for re-establishment in civil life of the members of His Majesty's forces who served in the late war has in many cases proved inadequate. Perhaps it has. The hon. member who proposes the resolution is, however-or was until quite recently- more in the secrets of the Government than I am, and if he states there are cases wherein this resolution will help the soldiers- will help them in returning to civil life, will help them in becoming as they were before, good citizens of this Dominion, will help them for the sacrifices which they have made-then, Mr. Speaker, I will without qualification support the motion of the hon. gentleman.
On motion of Mr. H. B. Morphy (North Perth) the debate was adjourned.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I ask
my hon. friend who is leading the House what business we shall take up to-morrow?


Newton Wesley Rowell: I beg to move the adjournment of the House. Thursday is private members' day during the first four weeks of the session; therefore to-morrow is also private members' day, ahd any resolution which private members have on the Order Paper may be brought up for discussion. I may point out that if private members desire to .have their resolutions disposed of it is desirable that they be prepared to go on at a time when there is opportunity to consider them; later in the session there may not be that opportunity.

If there is not sufficient business arising out of the resolution standing in the name of private members, Government business on the Order Paper will be taken up-resolutions standing in the name of Government members and any Bills that are ready. Some of the Bills are not yet printed in English and French; therefore we are not in a position to go on with them.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, and the House adjourned at 5.50 p.m.
Thursday, March 18, 1920.